Amazon Fixes The Prime Loophole

Shortly after its Prime Day last month, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN  has quietly changed its policies for Prime membership and fixed a loophole while doing it.

Dan Costa, Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine, was on CNBC recently to discuss the change and how it will impact customers.

The Loophole

"So, up until today and a lot of people didn't even know that this feature existed, but you'd be able to have a prime account and then share it with up to 4 other people and those people don't necessarily have to be living in the same house as you," Costa began. "You can share it with your parents, with your kids. So, basically 4 accounts for the price of 1."

He continued, "Amazon is going to close that loophole and make it so that for you have 1 account, you have 1 adult and then you can share it with up to 3 people usually children in the same household. So, it's a fairly significant change for those people that knew about the feature."

Prime Has Evolved Overtime

Costa was asked if this move by Amazon can be considered as a bait and switch. He replied, "The thing is Prime has been changing pretty much since the day they launched it. Originally it was just a way to subsidize free shipping and sort of create more sticky customers, but it has evolved overtime and Amazon has actually added a lot of new features to it."

"They have got a book, they have got a premium video service -- content you can only get if you are a Prime member -- they have got a music streaming service, it's actually really robust. They have got book lending all these new features brought in. So, Amazon has actually added a lot to the service overtime and I don't think any customer has really complained about it when new features came for the same price," Costa concluded.