Live data from Hacker News

Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

thewirecutter.com

411–420 of 429 posts

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#411
post #241

For the products that are actually regulated like the child support seats: hold Amazon liable for selling product that is illegal . Make it expensive for Amazon to not police the shit that third parties are throwing on the marketplace - and soon you won't see any fakes any more. You want to know where Bezos got his billions? Partially because Amazon outright shits on all the regulation that traditional brick and mort…

> offensive Ugh.

Let's assume a brick-and-mortar store where in the inventory there is Nazi propaganda such as the Reichskriegsflagge (commonly used as a substitute for the Swastika flag which is banned in many countries). No sane person would put this item up for sale because the same second it became public knowledge the store sells such flags it would be swarmed by protesters, and most likely would also attract a lot of vandals, thieves and other more radical protesters.

But on Amazon? There is no such thing as a public space to protest here, there is no cost (not even from lost business) in selling Nazi merchandise, so Amazon happily sells Nazi merchandise that Nazis then fly on their balconies and gardens, thus incurring a cost to society.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#412

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.”

After spending $50 on a "Recommended" and "Prime" counterfeit PS4 controller (proven by a tear down), I no longer buy electronics from Amazon. With a brick and mortar, some sort of incoming quality control still seems to be in place.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#413
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is what will save bricks and mortar? Guess where I buy any product I am going to ingest, put on my skin or plug into a wall? A real store with some special online exceptions, but those exceptions are never going to be Amazon or Ebay. There are some shady real stores selling shit too of course, so I have to be choosy, but I'm feeling pretty safe at a national supermarket chain, or Kmart.

I really believe these shady operations are ripe for satire and jabs in advertising. Much in the spirit of this one, just with teeth: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_Br-mO7Po

And also there are docos on netflix about the fake products problem, and they do scare you away from using certain large online marketplaces.

So if I were the big retailers and cosmetic manufacturers (etc.). I'd be banding together to help fund more docos like that on netflix and elsewhere.

That'll scare people over to physical retail without mucking the image of any specific brands.

Another advantage of physical is the great advice you get and being able to act straight away (tale the thing home.). For example for a DIY project you often realise you don't have something mid job, just go and get it, get some advice on how to install it, and finish the job off on the same day.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google search results have been deteriorating in the past couple of years. It feels like the algorithm has been deliberately tweaked to produce larger quantities of less relevant results - it will often substitute words for "synonyms" that are much broader in scope, to the point of rendering the query pointless. I can't help but think that the purpose is to then show more "relevant" ads.

Once I had great Google Fu. I could find really niche topics. Currently, it's completely useless for that. If it's not something that many people want to find, you cant find it.

You can still pull it off, but it requires copious quoting to ensure no substitutions or removals from the query.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy I do the same. I wish I didn't, but I don't know what the practical alternative is. I guess it's the whole reason that brands were created in the first place. I do source some of my stuff from smaller brands and shops, whenever I can. But that's not always an option. When it comes to software, I'm not entirely satisfied with Apple's "walled g…

I don't have the same experience with Apple. My MacBook had to get replaced multiple times due to a bad graphics card. My subsequent one had to get replaced multiple times because of the butterfly keyboards breaking. So far so good on the latest one but it's annoying to deal with so many replacements

Right, it's really "generally works, and if it doesn't, and not too much time has elapsed since purchase or it's a widespread issue, you'll get the issue fixed relatively quickly, as many times as needed, until the issue is fixed or they give up and replace the device".

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#417

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

Also funny, my result of this is that I now order basically everything directly via aliexpress. If all i get is chinese crap anyway, I can at least get it cheaper. Then I noticed that aliexpress actually made some pretty good page design choices. Since you can see how long a seller is registered and how many they have sold (both directly on the product information site), it is pretty easy to find a at lest decent tra…

> I now order basically everything directly via aliexpress

I would argue that in some ways, AliExpress is better than Amazon. Vendors seem really responsive, even for tiny purchases, and they are eager to avoid negative reviews.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#418

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

I saw a documentation a while ago on yt where a German family bought a smartphone over Amazon, which was from China (not sure anymore if they knew at that moment). It exploded then some time later while charging.. they said that Amazon also did not much care and it took a while until it was removed.

I can also say that the company where I work at, had already multiple times problems with Amazon. True they are maybe a bit of a different kind but I think that dollars is the most important thing for them. Even if you have to fk with customers or third party sellers in one or the other way. That's also why I only buy at Amazon if it's really necessary and it's from a big company, like Nintendo or so.

There's also now the law in Germany (or soon) which prohibits the destroying of brand new stuff just because it did not sell. That happened mainly (I'd say) because of Amazon where it went public that 2 trucks left a single warehouse on average per day, filled with only that kind of products

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#419

It's funny: I always thought the Internet and platforms like Amazon with the collaborative reviewing system would make brands more and more obsolete, because you could just pick high-quality products from smaller manufacturers by looking at user reviews. Now I find that I rely more and more on brands to decide which things I buy, because I simply cannot trust user reviews in most of the cases. Recently there are more…

Unfortunate, brand loyalty doesn't mean anything anymore: - a lot of companies don't manufacture the product themself - they don't even manufacture two products from the same subcontractor - sometime, the same product, between two batches, is not produce by the same sub-contractor - big players just don't care. Cisco is not going to lose business because you chose to not buy, and most people won't follow you to allow…

>- PR firms are so powerful now they can make any brand great again. See Microsoft.....

Well, yes in an era where any kid in their early 20s can be CTO of a startup, and get their 5 min of fame for saying Webkit is the new IE, thinks IE era meant IE 7 and never developed a thing during Pre IE6. Of coz they get moved by PR and Marketing. For those of us "old enough" who have been burnt, or at least old enough to be a little less idealistic. I am not really seeing the power of PR.

On the subject of Microsoft, it isn't really a powerful PR I mean you have to give them credit Satya's Microsoft is a lot different to Mid 90s Microsoft. There are lots of signs they are moving in right direction ( even though it is still bumpy ). From Xbox, Gaming, Windows, Azure, Open Source. While the quality still isn't there yet, but at least they know their quality is not good enough. And that is much better than old Microsoft where nothing is a problem as long as the sales are moving.

Post reply on HN