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Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

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Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#301

Post by jstarfish »

lechiffre10 wrote: post #239
Gustomaximus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it though? 1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. 2) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. 3) With the extra profit Amazon are making vs a competit…

1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. The problem with that statement is that you assume customers will flock back. It might be true in the short term however when you lose customers specifically because of pricing and the monopoly behavior, clients aren't going to quickly forget this behavior. You really think people will come running back and allowing Amazon to…

Consumer economic memory is limited in both capacity and duration; it only lasts about 8-12 months. After that they start to forget how you boned them and you can easily win them back with a deal on a shitty appliance.

Everyone who boycotted Chick-Fil-A ended up eating there again (if they even remember why they stopped), nobody cares about Wells Fargo's transgressions anymore and even Equifax is slipping out of the popular consciousness. Keep the stock price afloat for 8-12 months and you can recover from anything.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#302

Post by beaconstudios »

bildung wrote: post #290
beaconstudios wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) can be a net-positive? Because any other aspect of our current formation of capitalism is negotiable. We can regulate to counteract negative corporate behaviours (though that has its own set of issues) so that companies are working for the benefit of the populace.

> you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) That isn't capitalism, you just described a market. Markets existed for thousands of years before capitalism was created.

Yeah I know, but my point was that the market plus money is the indivisible unit of capitalism. You can take any other aspect away and it will still be capitalism. Unless you think some other fundamental characteristic is also required? I'm open to that idea. Private ownership of the means of production isn't really one because that existed during early market economies too.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#303

Post by wolco »

mindcrime wrote: post #172
dsr_ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you don't regulate them in the interests of the people at large, they will conspire to advance their own interests. The free markets need regulation, or they stop being free.

Everybody "conspires to advance their own interests"... that's pretty much the definition of self-interest. Anyway, the point is just that one doesn't expect companies to be your friend. You expect them to pursue their own interest, and thankfully their interest and your interest overlap quite often - and mutual, voluntary exchange of goods, service, and currency occurs. Are there things I wish Amazon, for example, d…

You think your interests overlap. They have been carefully presented this way to extract maximum value from you over the long term.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#304

Post by levosmetalo »

I came to the point that I am actively avoiding Amazon for any purchase.

It happened multiple times that they give better price to someone coming to Amazon from the search engine in incognito window than to their logged in Prime member searching for a product directly on Amazon.

Now I always use günstiger.de or idealo.de or some other meta search engine to find what I need, as well as many other people. The same way internet search engines killed big portals back in the time, Amazon is going to be killed by specialized search engines, though it may take a while.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#305

Post by hef19898 »

tfha wrote: post #63
arbuge wrote: post #19

Their basic underlying assumption appears to be that they're no longer in danger of losing customers and can now act accordingly. Now that they've captured 50%+ of US ecommerce, they've also raised many prices, to the point where they're far from the cheapest price in many cases. A random example... the cat litter I just purchased is $17.89 at Amazon, $13.49 at Walmart. Last week I bought a chair mat for $21.95 on Eb…

This is why I've been unhappy to see Bezos gaining steam. As his other products become more successful, you can expect a lot more of this. Alexa is not your friend, Alexa is a tool to make Amazon money. Amazon's move into media is not an effort to improve the media system, it's a recognition that there's a lot of money to be made by controlling the media that people consume. Same thing with the fire phone, it wasn't…

In my opinion that changed with the fire phone debacle. Arguably that was Jeffs baby, when it tanked (as far as I know) most of the developer team left. And the apparently told Jeff that some stuff he wanted in the phone was bad idea.

So, that would go against thr leadership principles of vocally self-critical and earn trust. Not that it harmed stock performance, but it changed something, somehow. Not sure what, so.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#307

Post by jstarfish »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #205
Gustomaximus wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it though? 1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. 2) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. 3) With the extra profit Amazon are making vs a competit…

> The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. > Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies that can complete with Amazon ever, so it seems unlikely there will be a 'started in the garage' business compete with them now the market is maturing. I'd rather just walk into Target (same day pickup), Walmart (same day pick…

> Buy Buy Baby

Always hated the name of that store. It sounds like a euphemism for Planned Parenthood.

> The UX is still great for me to track down products I might like or need and then go shop for them in person.

What a hilarious inversion of the way things used to be.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#308

Post by discreditable »

jrockway wrote: post #57

I might actually be done with Amazon. Every few months, I spend some time searching for the perfect LED light bulbs for my apartment; the built-in fixture requires 6 candelabra-base bulbs. These are hard to find, but there are a few products catering to this market, so I randomly buy stuff to see if I ever get anything good. I found some LEDs that claimed to have a high CRI and were brighter than normal, so I took a…

I had a similar experience. I've shared it before but I'll copy it here:

I've stopped leaving Amazon reviews. Recently I was bored and went through a few bits of network equipment and PC hardware I purchased and reviewed a few of them. 3/6 of the reviews were rejected for being against community guidelines with no reason provided. Even after reading the guidelines it's not clear why they were rejected. I put in effort to describe why something got its rating from me. For example, I discussed the strengths/weaknesses the network equipment. From now on I might leave a star rating, but I'm not wasting time to get a review accepted. I'll leave that to the shills.

Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads

#310

Post by awaywopassd »

hef19898 wrote: post #297
awaywopassd wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? The big issue is co-mingling inventory. This is where they mix same product from different sellers in same batch. I only order products from Amazon.com LLC. But I have still received items that seems fake. Some says that co-mingling inventory saves Amazon a lot of money but to me it seems like Amazon is actively…

One other, and somehow more troubling alternative to safing money, could that Amazon's homegrown warehouse management systems and fulfillment software are reaching some kind of limitation. Seperating inventory not just by article but also supplier and / or inventory owner is no small feat. But if Amazon's IT environment is not able of doing it, this is opening all kinds of issues. None of them really good in the long…

Actually, I have some experience as Amazon Seller/FBA. I believe on certain items, I would get an option to co-mingle it. It wasn't selected by default, so I didn't change it.

So Amazon has already built the system to keep inventory separate by sellers.

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