Amazon's Prime Sucker?

Virginia Heffernan - Amazon's Prime Suspect - NYTimes.com: "I’m a member of Amazon Prime, and I can’t help congratulating myself. Though I should know better, I persist in believing that Amazon Prime, a program that for an annual fee gets me 'free' two-day shipping on purchases from Amazon, is something I’ve been tapped for — like Skull and Bones. Sure, I know that Amazon flogs Amazon Prime on every Web street corner, and if you shop even once at the nation’s largest online retailer you practically have to fight not to join up, which is to say, to pay the 79 bucks that make you a member. But on most days I’m so delighted by the warm welcome the site gives me ... So it wasn’t easy to suppress despair the other night when someone casually mentioned that there might be something . . . a little . . . chumpy about Amazon Prime. He wasn’t even talking about the auto-renewal, though it’s true Amazon doesn’t exactly grab you by the lapels to warn you that your card has been charged again, or about Amazon’s new program to draw students in by waiving the Prime membership fee for the first year. He hinted at something more sinister. ..."