Amazon and Target created premium versions of shopping. They charge you for the privilege of giving them money faster.
Prime costs $139 a year. Target Circle 360 costs $99. Both promise free shipping on products you were going to overpay for anyway. The value proposition is identical to paying a cover charge at a bar that waters down its drinks.
Amazon throws in streaming video nobody watches and music nobody listens to. Target includes same-day delivery from Shipt, which is useful if you need toilet paper so urgently you can't wait until tomorrow but not so urgently you'll drive ten minutes to the store.
The article suggests these memberships could be "no-brainer investments" depending on shopping frequency. Investments. They called subscription fees for retail therapy investments. By that logic, my monthly parking pass is a real estate portfolio.
Here's the decision matrix: Do you buy enough plastic garbage from Amazon to justify $139? Do you buy enough plastic garbage from Target to justify $99? Do you buy enough plastic garbage from both to justify $238? The correct answer is you buy too much plastic garbage.
Prime members spend an average of $1,400 per year on the platform. Non-members spend $600. Amazon discovered that charging people to shop makes them shop more, which is the same psychological trick casinos use with comp drinks. Except casinos have the decency to give you free liquor instead of a documentary series about Patagonia.
Target's membership includes early access to deals. Early access. They're selling you the right to buy their clearance items before other people buy their clearance items. It's a velvet rope for discount shopping.
The memberships compete for your loyalty by offering slightly different versions of convenience you managed to live without for your entire adult life until 2005. Revolutionary stuff.
Both companies win whether you choose one, both, or neither, because you'll keep buying garbage either way, you'll just feel smarter about the shipping costs.
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