One of the best deals in the world just got a little more expensive. Amazon has announced it is increasing the price of its Amazon Prime subscription service from $79 to $99 a year, a rise of $20. The Amazon Student Prime yearly price will also be going up, from $39 to $49 a year. Amazon first launched Amazon Prime in the U.S. in 2005 and has since expanded it to a number of other countries.
That"s the bad news. The good news is that if you have yet to sign up for Amazon Prime, you still have seven days to do so at the lower $79 price for the first year. Just a reminder; the subscription gives members free two day shipments of many physical products from Amazon.com, along with access to the Netflix-like Amazon Instant Video, with tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes. It also allows users to borrow one ebook a month for free from the Kindle Owners Leading Library, which has 500,000 titles.
So why the price increase? CNet reports that, in an email sent to Amazon Prime users, the company hinted that higher fuel and transportation costs were the main reason for the price hike. Earlier this year, the company was reportedly thinking about boosting the price to as high as $119. It"s also possible that the increase is due to the company spending more on original content for Amazon Instant Video. Earlier this week, Deadline reported that Amazon will launch four new series for the service, including "The After", a post-apocalypse show from "The X-Files" creator Chris Carter.