111–120 of 429 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google has been about the same for me. I went from total Google fanboy to migrating a lot of my life away from them and advising others to do the same.
No non tech person is going to use Duck Duck Go.
I have started buying most products directly from manufacturer's websites or in physical stores now. The amount of fake products on Amazon is appalling, I wonder why they don't put effort into stopping this.
What it contained looked like a Chromecast, but was actually a knockoff, which I never could get to associate with my network or get working.
Apparently someone bought this cheap one online, didn't like it, bought the real one at Walmart and put the fake one back in the box and returned it to the store.
The switcheroo problem described in the article simply does not exist say over on Ebay. On Ebay, you directly know if you are buying from a legitimate distributor, small time grey market / surplus dealer, or a knockoff shop. There are plenty of products for which knockoffs/generics are good enough, so simplistically "banning fakes" is not the solution either. The problem is this obscuring of the actual supplier, whic…
> On Ebay, you directly know if you are buying from a legitimate distributor, small time grey market / surplus dealer, or a knockoff shop. Would you mind explaining how you can figure this out? (I've never bought anything on Ebay, so I'm completely ignorant about how it works.)
Legitimate distributors generally have recognizable names and other web presences - Best Buy, Adorama, Beach Camera, Anker Direct, Rosewill, etc. The value here is being able to search prices across all these stores at once.
Surplus distributors usually have conditions Open Box / Seller Refurbished, fixed quantities, many such listings.
Knockoffs/generics either ship direct from China, or have basically identical listings that ship directly from China.
This of course all depends on what you're actually buying, but being able to weigh such details is the whole point. Many generic computer cables/adapters/etc are great, but you'd be foolish to buy lithium ion batteries that way.
Specifically searching for "Ove Glove", I do see an item that is direct from China. So right away I know this is an item that has been heavily copied. Which is a given, with this article. But knowing this means I can either opt for the cheaper generic version (and self-verify it has similar utility), or be extra sure to order it from a legitimate channel.
I have friends who are no longer buying from Amazon. Especially friends with kids. You can’t trust anything safe for your kids when crap like this is allowed. Amazon is in a race to flood the market with availability at the cost of consumer confidence. Remember all the hoverboard fires you saw on the news several years ago? They weren’t knock offs, but items sold that didn’t have any real safety certifications in min…
My neighbor bought a set of woodworking clamps from Amazon. When the ~25lb. box arrived, the driver threw them up onto his porch (his house is quite raised from the street), and he has video of it damaging his siding as it took three attempts for the driver to get them over the railing onto his porch. When he contacted Amazon, they said to contact some insurance company they had. When my neighbor called the insurance…
I have friends who are no longer buying from Amazon. Especially friends with kids. You can’t trust anything safe for your kids when crap like this is allowed. Amazon is in a race to flood the market with availability at the cost of consumer confidence. Remember all the hoverboard fires you saw on the news several years ago? They weren’t knock offs, but items sold that didn’t have any real safety certifications in min…
The amount of electronics sold without an UL/ETL cert on Amazon is staggering. Many companies no longer bother getting one because there's noone to stop them from selling uncertified crap. Also, we have seen unscrupulous dealers slapping a fake ETL cert on their product and even when Intertek contacted Amazon they didn't take it down!
Hell, there's an "international" power strip sold under many different names which provides three NEMA 5-15R from a single IEC C5/C6 coupler (the IEC standard is up to 2.5A but the UL certifies it up to 13A but still, the NEMA connector is 15A) and to top it off, it is sold with an ungrounded cable. I often see it recommended on travel forums, for real. I can't even decide whether shock or fire is the bigger hazard with this. Someone eventually will burn down an airbnb with it and then will the finger pointing start.
Fake reviews also contribute to more fake and low quality products being sold. It looks like Amazon simply doesn't care. https://thehustle.co/amazon-fake-reviews FTA: "One stay-at-home mom from Kentucky told me she makes $200-300 per month leaving positive reviews for things like sleep masks, light bulbs, and AV cables." “Do you actually like the products?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she wrote. “I never use them.”
I posted about this on HN recently[1]. Within the last month, I've been getting an increasing amount of native ads on different platforms for "Free [Product]!". If you engage the ad, you find out that the ad-purchaser wants you to buy the advertised product and leave a positive review for it on Amazon, after which they'll refund you for the cost of the product. Some of these items have thousands of positive reviews[1…