[save_ferris]

What shocked me was that after I let my Prime membership expire and ordered something to be shipped, I got the usual 7-10 business day ETA on my package.

The package came the next day, and no extra cost to me. I've made two other orders since then, and they both arrived next day despite the order confirmation telling me 7-10 days.

I'm sure that there's some shipping infrastructure slack that allows them to do this, but I find it super strange now that I get prompted to pay an extra $10 for next-day shipping only to get it anyway.

[mikeash]

I’ve never had Prime and often get fast service anyway like you describe. It’s not totally consistent, though. I assume their logistics are so good that they can usually fulfill an order quickly at no extra cost because they have it in a nearby warehouse, but sometimes you hit cases where the closest item is still on the other side of the country. In that case, Prime would get you fast shipping and the free, slow shipping won’t.

[daveFNbuck]

Meanwhile, I pay for prime and experience extremely unreliable shipping.

[praneshp]

If you don't normalize for where you live I think it's an apples to oranges comparison.

[daveFNbuck]

That's pretty much our points. Shipping speed is mostly about factors other than Prime membership.