I think they let you (not YOU necessarily, but the proverbial you.) get away with stuff because they know your habits and you probably make more money for them than you realize.

I can almost guarantee that everyone mentioned in that blog post is a habitual Amazon user. They're all renewing Prime each year at full price and making a ton of regular purchases. The family has even turned on the FOMO by making Prime a family social network with social pressure to stay. I see it as a self-own, personally.

Edit: I'm taking part of this to the root of the thread