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#46. The Substandard Amazon Prime Day Spectacular
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Dudes Chatting — Amazon Prime Day: The hosts riff on Amazon Prime Day deals and what they actually bought. JVL picked up the Dark Knight trilogy on Prime; Sonny got books including Dune and Neal Stephenson titles; Vic scored the Game of Thrones Season 1–6 Blu-ray set. They brainstorm improvements to Prime Day: Sonny proposes real-time GPS tracking of your package as a feature, while JVL floats a more elaborate proposal — Amazon should grant an amnesty window for warehouse thieves, then reveal their identities and broadcast a Hunger Games–style battle royale to Prime members, with Alexa providing color commentary.
Micro-episode; no Reviews or Box Office segments.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello, and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of TheSubstandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m., and Substandard show notes are posted by Jonathan Last every Friday at WeeklyStandard.com. Now, last night at 9 p.m. Eastern. Eastern Standard Time, we...
Sonny00:00:34Is it Eastern Standard Time, or are we in Daylight Savings?
Vic00:00:36I think it's EST, that's what it is. I don't even know. Oh, I have no idea, Sonny. Is it EST? EST. It is EST. Not to be confused with the EST meetings in the Americans. We commenced with Prime Day on Amazon. It's like Black Friday, but crazier, and yet it's not the... No, it's like Christmas. It's like Christmas. It's like Christmas and Easter.
Sonny00:00:56And you would think... And... And the 4th of July all rolled into one.
Vic00:00:59And yet you would think that would be the top trending thing on Twitter right now, but it's not, is it?
Sonny00:01:04No. What is it? As Andy Levy tweeted, David Brooks ruined Prime Day. He ruined it for all of us. Do we discuss that now, or are we just going to discuss that in the main? People are going to have to listen. Yeah, they'll have to wait until Thursday. We can discuss it a little more then. Yeah.
Vic00:01:19In the meantime, have a salami sandwich, if that's not too exotic for you. So, how crazy does it get? NCTVL, how long has Prime Day been going on for?
JVL00:01:30Well, there's a lot of lead up to it, but I like to think of it as the Prime Day season. How many days of Prime Day are there? There's a joyful anticipation, as we say at Victorino and the Catholic Church. And last night, because it begins at 9, was the Prime Day vigil. Oh, good. And a few days ago, they had the early Prime Day instant video sale, where I
Sonny00:01:56picked up all three movies of the Dark Knight trilogy, which I own on Blu-ray. Which you already own in one format.
JVL00:02:02But I just wanted to be able to know that no matter where I am in the world, I could actually pull up on my phone and watch them. Well, I assume those also- And I got all three of them for $15 total.
Sonny00:02:12Wow. Prime Day. Wow. Happy Prime Day. So wait, I don't understand. Don't the Blu-rays come with downloads that you can put on your devices? Yeah, you know what? But it's not the Amazon. These are Voodoo, which is the Walmart. Voodoo is the Walmart video service, which has been great. I don't even know what this thing is.
JVL00:02:31Is it like V-U-D-U? Yes.
Sonny00:02:33Can we ask David Brooks' friend with a high school diploma what Voodoo is? She probably uses Voodoo instead of Prime. Because it's Walmart. Because it's Walmart and she's poorly educated and easily led.
Vic00:02:43You don't learn about the cured meats, though. Oh, jeez. Okay, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:47I have already had a very happy Prime Day. First off, if you are into books, if you're into actual physical books, you can save $5. You just use PRIMEBOOK17 in the code at checkout. $5 off any $15 or more purchase. And I got the new Steel, or I guess the most recent Neal Stephenson novel, Seven Eves, and Dune, Frank Herbert's Dune. Never read it before. Got it basically for free with my $5 off coupon.
JVL00:03:15Could you go and order Vodka? The story of how a colorless, favorless, and odorless spirit conquered America? You probably could.
Vic00:03:22That's a great question, JV. I don't know. I don't know.
Sonny00:03:24I don't know if that's more than $15, but if it is, you could.
Vic00:03:27It was marked down from 26 to 16. It's a great special. Get it now, everybody. Get it now.
Sonny00:03:33Or you could get What to Expect When No One's Expecting. No one or nobody.
Vic00:03:38Who cares?
Sonny00:03:38You could get JBL's book about babies and how nobody's having them anymore.
Vic00:03:42I got that book when Kate was pregnant because I thought that it was about having the baby, and that turned out to be the other book. And so, as a result, it was a very tricky thing on Jonathan's behalf. Awkward. Yes. And you know what? That's where that one-star review came from. Millions of sales by accident, by the way.
Sonny00:03:59In addition to that, you could also pick up, say, The Christmas Virtues, because this is Prime Day, which is even better than Christmas. Wait a minute.
JVL00:04:05Wait a minute. The next book we do? The Prime Day Virtues. The Prime Day Virtues!
Sonny00:04:12Amazon would love that. The Amazon Virtues. It would shoot up. Actually, that's not a terrible idea. Can you get that to your people?
JVL00:04:19You know what? In fact, I'm actually having lunch with my publisher tomorrow. No kidding. No fooling. And I will pitch this. The Amazon Virtues. The Amazon Virtues.
Sonny00:04:26The Prime Day Virtues. Yeah. I think.
JVL00:04:28So here's a serious question. All right. Well, that's not a serious question.
Sonny00:04:34Well, I can't imagine that this will actually be a serious question.
JVL00:04:37I do have a serious question, which is that wouldn't you want ... I love the book on Amazon, The Everything Store. It's great. What I really want is a book purely focused on Amazon and logistics. Logistics is a subject, for me, of endless fascination. Oh, yeah. If I could go back to college and do it again, I would find someplace where I could major in logistics. I hear Georgetown has a great program. I wouldn't have gotten in. And it's a fascinating subject. It's a fascinating subject. But here's my non-serious question, maybe a serious question. How could ... Because Jeff Bezos, the great Jeff Bezos, is always innovating. Yes. How could we make Prime Day even better for next year? So if you could get it ... If Jeff Bezos ... If Jeff Bezos were listening to this show, what would you say he could do?
Sonny00:05:29Well, let me tell you what I was discussing with my friends at Twitter.com just yesterday. What if ... Now, maybe it would be like an add-on or something like that, but what if Amazon gave you the option to track the actual location of your package as it was coming? Not like, oh, it went to this hub and it's going ... The Google Map. You pull it up on Google Maps and you see a little ... A truck. Moving. You see a little truck going ... Like the Uber car. Or like, you know, the airplane tracker when you're on the flights? Yes. What if you could have that, but for your package? How much would you pay for that? I would pay at least $25 a year for that. I would pay at least $25 a year. Do you know what I would do?
Vic00:06:10Amazon Tracker.
Sonny00:06:11Amazon Tracker. If I had that ... Insta Tracker. I would drive out to find the truck. You would intercept ...
JVL00:06:16And then just follow the truck around. Follow him back to my house where I could be waiting for him then.
Sonny00:06:21I think a lot of people ... So, this is one of the real drawbacks of this. People would actually probably go out and try to intercept their driver. They're like, I need this. I need this gift for my kid right now. I can't wait for four more hours to get here. And they already kind of have this with the food service. If you order from Amazon Restaurants or whatever, from whatever their restaurant service is, you can actually track the food as it's coming to you. So, the technology is there. It exists.
Vic00:06:48They have the technology. There's a lot of applications. I could picture, for example, trying to track a truck that might be containing a neutron bomb that could blow up a city, and you just follow it around and figure out where it is. Very nicely played, Victorino. Only because Michael and I, he saw The Dark Knight Rises last night. Oh, good. Yes. So, he's seen the whole trilogy. He goes, wait a minute. There's a third one? I go, yeah, Batman Begins, but you don't really need to see that one, I thought. Am I wrong? No, not wrong.
JVL00:07:13Batman Begins is good.
Sonny00:07:14So, I have my own suggestion.
JVL00:07:16Yes. Okay. As to how we can improve private. You wrote, approvingly, about what Amazon does, Sonny, to thieves in its warehouses. Yes. Could you share what Amazon does to their thieves?
Sonny00:07:29Well, they put up big photos of the people who steal, and they're like, don't be like this person. So, the warehouse monkeys? Right, right. Yeah. So, the other warehouse people can see that what happens to you when you are caught as a thief, you're shamed. You're shamed in front of the rest of the warehouse employees.
JVL00:07:43Okay. So, I'm just spitballing here. Okay. What if every Prime Day, Jeff Bezos were to grant amnesty to 10 Amazon workers who have stolen from the company? And then, through his beneficence, maybe we put them on an island to fight to the death, and the winner gets Amazon purchases for free for the rest of their lives. It's a Prime Day miracle.
Sonny00:08:08So, basically, what you're thinking is a sort of battle royale situation, where they are given weapons, or do they just- I would say- Are they just- Limited number of weapons. Right.
Vic00:08:18Maybe break a pool stick in half.
Sonny00:08:20Right. You could do- Well, you would have to break, like, six pool cubes. Or 12. So, okay. I like where your head is on this. I like where your head is on this, JBL, but we need to fine-tune this just a bit. Okay. Obviously, we would have to broadcast this for all Amazon Prime customers. Yes. So, it comes straight to your computer. You can watch the action as the parolees, so to speak, do battle. Does Alexa do color commentary? I would assume, yes. I don't see why not.
JVL00:08:55So, that you could listen to the radio broadcast where Alexa is giving you the play-by-play of what's happening in the arena.
Sonny00:09:00Or, even better, Jeff Bezos could just buy Stanley Tucci and have him do his Hunger Game shtick for this thing. We're all going to hell. It's great.
Vic00:09:12I actually got my first Prime Day purchase. I've never done it before, believe it or not. Wow. Virgin. Prime Virgin. Yes. It was exciting and quick. Anyway, it was Game of... I got Game of Thrones 1 through 6 on Blu-ray, because I've never seen it before. I see there's like dragons and fantasy. I thought maybe it was the kind of thing that Michael might like. Look, if you're into tits and dragons, this is the show for you.
Sonny00:09:37Frankly, this sounds like a show made for Michael. I mean, honestly.
Vic00:09:40Do you think it'll be fine for my son?
Sonny00:09:42Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure it's fine.
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