I've recently seen the phone advertised with a year of free 'Prime' membership (aka a $100 value). Not really very compelling, however if they gave you a year of Prime and also that none of your Prime Video or Prime Audio streaming counted against your Data cap, that would be an interesting proposition. Frankly I was kind of surprised they didn't just lead with that.
Those of us who have had Prime for a long time don't really see adding a year on top of it as a huge incentive. So that's only interesting to anyone who's keen on Prime but, to date, hasn't signed up. I'd say that's a small number.
Personally, my take is that they started this project years ago and were going to ship it come hell or high water. There are times you have to look at a product in development and get really honest about whether it crests a highwater mark for your brand, and your market.
Between the e-book fight and this disaster, Amazon's churning some ill will. They'll survive, but Fire products will probably get a more skeptical tone in reviews than before, because everyone sort of granted that they would improve and refine over time, kind of like their profit strategy.
Shipping companies are like mail transport agents: all of them suck, but, usually, one sucks less for your particular use.
I've had a bunch of packages delivered by OnTrac, UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. All of them have screwed it up at some point but all of them have gotten the vast majority (more than 90%) of deliveries exactly right.
My favorite for my particular use has been FedEx, because I can reroute any delivery to one of their many outlets and have it waiting for me on my way home, rather than having to go to some distribution center after an inevitably missed delivery (I work the same hours they do).
OnTrac recently declared, apropos of nothing, that the package they "guaranteed delivery" for was undeliverable, and that (according to their online tracking) they'd try again the next day. They didn't. The tracking didn't update for the next two days. They delivered my package the day after I called them to complain -- the guy on the phone told me "we had some staffing issues".
