Is it just me, or is Amazon Prime getting Shittier?

Amazon Prime.  2 day free shipping on anything they sell.  And they have "Earth's Biggest Selection".  Sounds almost too good to be true.

I ended up signing up for this almost a year ago.  It has been great so far.  Prior to this, I tended to be reluctant to ordering online (although still would), due to shipping cost and waiting 5 "business" days.  Something you order this Wednesday might show up next Tuesday or Wednesday.  I'd either put off ordering (which I realize is illogical since it makes the total time greater) or just not order at all.  From a cost perspective, I'd also try to combine shipping to save on it, which often resulted in me not ordering something at all or forgetting about it.  I tended to order more for "special occasions" or really cheap deals.
 
Amazon Prime changed this.  For one, I could order items serially and not have to worry about shipping costs or combining.  More importantly, it allowed me to "get things done": if I needed something, I order it and it shows up before I wonder where it is.  2 days is not immediate, but for me, it's usually below the time where I think of it again aside from big ticket items.

They seem to have made changes lately.  They've done this previously, with $3.99 one day shipping, Saturday delivery, free MP3 for taking the crappy shipping, etc.  What I've noticed lately is them "rounding down" the shipping service.  Before, you could order something late Wednesday, and have it show up Friday (effectively it's a 1 day order since it would ship Thursday).  Also, if you ordered Friday, 2 day shipping = Tuesday.  I ordered something an hour+ ago, and they said it would be Wednesday.  A bigger farce was that "one day" shipping would be Tuesday.  Is this my imagination?  Or did they always do this ordering this late and I never noticed?

The big direct change that just came out is add on items.  Before, they'd ship a $7 item to you in 2 days, now they are holding you hostage for a minimum order.  It defeats some of the purpose for me.  Although some of the cheaper "fulfilled by Amazon" Prime eligible items clearly had the shipping padded in in the past, so whatever.  I guess I somewhat understand this, but 2 day cheap items was a big selling point for me.  I need batteries?  Click "buy" and it's here in 2 days.  They also seem to have limited severely the subscribe and save, something which can use the cheap shipping and so is annoying as hell.

Will I keep it?  I'm on the fence.  Although to be honest, it's probably still better than the alternatives.  I ordered a protective case for my phone (Amazon, but via a third party) and it's gonna be a week plus before it shows up.  It's really annoying, and I can deal with them rounding the service down more than dealing with that slow nonsense.

Phonebooks: Why?

Phonebooks in the 21st century. Why do they persist? The other day, I was minding my own business. I walk outside and there is this white unmarked van. A bunch of goons get out, and start piling up phone books by the mailboxes. It is annoying enough all the junk mail I get. Why do we need a crate of 20 lb paper books as well? They (and the junk mail people) are doing nothing but delivering garbage to my doorstep. I don't want it, nobody does. We have this thing called the internet now. It is this amazing invention where you can type whatever it is you are looking for, and instantly, the machine finds it for you without having to kill any trees. Nobody uses phone books anymore. There is still a massive pile of them and it's been a couple of days. Nobody takes them, and they eventually get thrown out. I fail to see how this business is still profitable. As recently as 10 years ago, I could see a small business thinking that if they don't pay for the phone book ad, they will see less business. But in today's day and age, you just google locally. I can't remember the last time I looked in a phone book. I can't imagine that any small business would pay to be in one anymore unless the rates have gone down drastically. And even then, it would reduce their profitability drastically. So why do they still make them? There is only a small percentage of Old people that still use them. My parents don't, they know of this thing called google and have a tablet. I am not 100% certain (and don't care enough to look it up), but the local phone companies DON'T give you phone books anymore, unless you ask. Which is good for old people that don't use computers, and how it should be. I'm pretty sure these assholes delivering trash to me are third party companies like yellowbook. The local phone companies, in addition to being slowly diminished by cell phones, would rather charge you just $0.99 for directory assistance.

Programmable Thermostats

I was browsing Amazon today and saw an ad for this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006ML9J4O/ref=amb_link_363389382_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-3&pf_rd_r=08TY1S0DZ9W1BP5E8QWA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1374036862&pf_rd_i=507846 It is a $250 electronic thermostat, that is designed to program itself. Before I say my point, something like this may be great for some people. And, maybe, if I was in a bigger place, maybe I'd appreciate it more. But here's my point: I have no use for a programmable thermostat, for the most part. I live in a small, well (surprisingly so) insulated place. I pay heating and air conditioning bills here. You need heat, and air conditioning starts getting pretty nice to have as temperatures climb. Sure, I could back off on the settings for these and save some money, but why? I pay these bills to be comfortable. Turning that dial up to 76 may save me a few dollars a month, but I am going to be less comfortable. So why do it? Turning the heat or AC down during the day sounds like a good idea, but if your place is well insulated (as mine is), what do you really gain? It cools down a bit during the day, but must work overtime when you get home. What have we saved here, exactly? And forget about AC. If it is hot enough that turning the AC down has an effect, you will be getting home to a warm house. On hot days, the AC runs 80-90% of the time (or near 100% on that heat wave of the year) by design. Unless you mind it being hot when you get home (and I do), this will save you nothing. For the record breaking month of July this year, my power bill was maybe $40 more than winter. You read that right. It's usually like $30 more. The big possible savings is when you are gone for multiple days -- in which case I turn it down/off anyway manually. The biggest thing is that most people have utterly no scientific measurement of the effect of the thermostat. They just assume it saves them money. While there is a valid reason to believe this (certainly, running anything less would cost less), the difference may be so minute as to be meaningless. If people see that their bill was less, they'll credit it to the thermostat. If it's more, well, then it was a particularly hot or cold month... There's no *real* comparison. If you save about $10 a month, and deal with some amount of discomfort doing so, is it worth it? I say no.