Amazon Dark Patterns • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#221

Post by alexgmcm » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #170

alexgmcm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But equally - does it matter? I would rather have less, but more accurate, reviews than have all of them but many of them being fake. It seems like a use-case where a high false positive rate would be acceptable. Unlike say, medical diagnosis or something.

If legit reviewers have their work deleted because of FPs they get annoyed and won't write more reviews, they may even stop using the site entirely.

They could shadowban the reviews - so the reviewer would think it was being displayed.

A bit deceitful but maybe better for UX.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#222

Post by fastball » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

sbjs wrote: post #215

coryfklein wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or only allow paying Prime members to leave reviews. That would cut out the fraud pretty darn quickly.

No, a scammer can say to 10 people "here's $10 to buy get an account, now leave 100 reviews and I'll pay you $1 for each" and that guy himself gets paid $10 per review directly from the seller. The people each made $100, and he spent $110 on each of them, losing $1,100 total, but he made $1,000 of each, so $10,000 total. At the end of the day he made $8,900 by acting as a middle man.

You're not factoring in the fact that if a Prime member participated in this, Amazon could suspend their account without any reimbursement. For most people, chump change is not worth nuking your $99 Prime account.

Also, the idea that sellers would pay $10 each for a 5-star review is laughable.

It's easy to make something economically viable when you're numbers are complete drivel.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#223

Post by l9k » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #23

lostsock wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much exactly what Meriton was just fined AU$3m for today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17649912

As far as I know, the rule is, you can only show the native app-store review dialog once, if the user cancels, you won't get any review ever. So the idea is, to show your own until the user finally decides to review. But now the growth hackers of the world had the brilliant idea to treat bad reviews like "the user isn't ready for a review"

Same with browser permissions. Websites would ask you if you're okay with the authorization and only if you answer Yes, they would trigger the browser auth prompt.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#224

Post by remir » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

afpx wrote: post #115

I also see this very often with Apple’s App Store. About 30% of the time, my negative reviews are deleted. Even when I re-submit the reviews, they’re often deleted. This doesn’t happen to any of my positive reviews. I opened up several helpdesk tickets about this and got no answers. In fact, they had the audacity to tell me that it’s impossible to remove reviews and that it was probably user error.

I may be mistaken, but I heard reviews are deleted when the dev pushes an update to their app.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#225

Post by jdo20bbx » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

EpicEng wrote: post #157

lghh wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Isn't that a little dishonest?

More than a little, but I think the "why" is obvious.

Cause people have to sell to eat in our culture of step on the next guy to have a life.

And it encourages and even facilitates shady shit.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#226

Post by EpicEng » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

jdo20bbx wrote: post #225

EpicEng wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than a little, but I think the "why" is obvious.

Cause people have to sell to eat in our culture of step on the next guy to have a life. And it encourages and even facilitates shady shit.

>Cause people have to sell to eat in our culture of step on the next guy to have a life.

A bit hyperbolic, but also applies to pretty much every culture which has ever existed.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#227

Post by r00fus » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

seren wrote: post #141

SamuelAdams wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless? Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However, the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says "Seattle Coffee Beans". So if you leave a rev…

Even if there are some charitable explanations possible, the least courtesy would be to warn you that your comment had been removed and why. You could mark the comment as "outdated", it won't bother me (assuming something has really changed). Here, it creates the impression that my comment was swept under the rug for some dubious reasons. And this is probably the last time I ever comment on Amazon. That does not real…

To others' point it could be in Amazons interest to have completely fake but real-looking reviews to promote their preferred products so this would then feed into that dark pattern.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#228

Post by moravak1984 » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

I had a similar experience with booking.com reviews. My less than 3 star reviews somehow don't make it, while 4-star reviews go straight to the list. Coincidence?

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#229

Post by jdo20bbx » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

jdo20bbx wrote: post #225

EpicEng wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than a little, but I think the "why" is obvious.

Cause people have to sell to eat in our culture of step on the next guy to have a life. And it encourages and even facilitates shady shit.

Bin the complaints about shady then?

It’s just how society will always function, right?

How can it be shady if it’s normal?

There are no ideas out there for evolving social norms. None. Zero. We’re stuck like this forever.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#230

Post by joemi » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #57

ashelmire wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can actually verify and tell you why. Amazon will not allow you to criticize Amazon or their platform in a review (they said as much). Only the product. They probably do automatic sentiment detection for negative phrases containing Amazon and don’t allow them to be posted. The platform and shipping are relevant in a product review.

To a certain degree. There really should be two ratings. Shipment rating and product rating. I don't want to get a TV that gets shipped badly, sure. But if the only problem with shipping is that it is slow, maybe I'm still interested in the product because I don't get it anywhere else and I can wait. In that case I'm mostly interested in the product review.

> To a certain degree. There really should be two ratings. Shipment rating and product rating.

Amazon does actually have a system for that, but it's only applicable to third party ("Marketplace" in Amazon lingo) sellers. For third party sellers, you can review products with the usual Product Reviews, and then for things like shipping issues (and customer service issues, and anything else that isn't the product itself) you'd mention that in your Seller Feedback. When you buy from a third party seller, there'll be a "leave seller feedback" button when you view your order. You can view a seller's feedback by clicking on their name when you see it in the product listing.

There's no "leave seller feedback" button when you place an order from Amazon though.