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Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

wired.com

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Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#41

Post by xwdv »

sneak wrote: post #39
xwdv wrote: post #8

Why don’t people just fire up their own domain drop in an e-commerce store and sell these face masks while answering to no one? It should be fairly easy for such a site to go viral given the pent up demand.

What is “just fire up” for you and I is an insurmountable hurdle for most people who use computers, either due to skills or ignorance, and is one of the main reasons that people use hosted, censorship platforms as default.

So this means people like us would have the competitive advantage for these sorts of business opportunities.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#42

Post by megablast »

fortran77 wrote: post #21
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many metals are contact-antimicrobial See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_properties_of_co... -: Copper and its alloys (brasses, bronzes, cupronickel, copper-nickel-zinc, and others) are natural antimicrobial materials. And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect -: The oligodynamic effect (from Greek oligos "few", and dynamis "force") is a biocidal effect of metals, especially heavy metals, tha…

You're welcome to rub your hands with a copper disk after going out in public. I'm going to wash them with soap and water for 20 seconds.

So, you don’t pass the virus on, but he does? And you think that’s a win?

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#43

Post by theamk »

maxerickson wrote: post #5
sneak wrote: post #2

> We use sophisticated tools, including machine learning, to combat them, and we are making it increasingly difficult for bad actors to hide. So sophisticated that some reporter for wired could find them in the top few hundred bestsellers in a few minutes with a quick visual scan. Let’s be clear: Amazon should not be censoring legal items on their platform. However, their efforts at stopping it are purely a PR matter…

What's the difference between a platform that censors and a platform that sorts in a useful way?

"sort in a useful way" benefits consumer of information

"censoring" benefits someone else

The easy indicator is an ability to control: you can do "Sort by price" to disable sorting, but there is never a "do not censor" checkbox

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#44

Post by epr »

wtallis wrote: post #40
epr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is truly painful to see how little people seem to understand or appreciate the living organism that is human action in the aggregate. Large surges in demand which are inevitably met with price increases are signals to other parts of the organism to send goods where they are needed. Higher prices encourage a balance of needs and responsible budgeting so individual cells don't simply take all that is available to th…

> Higher prices encourage a balance of needs and responsible budgeting so individual cells don't simply take all that is available to the detriment of the organism as a whole. Aren't you making a fairly unreasonable assumption that need is also accompanied by ability to pay elevated prices?

Not at all, hence the word "encourage" instead of something more absolute like "enforce". The distinction between a "want" and "need" is very tough to make beyond physical reality bound calculations of measurable requirements for survival like calories or materials required to build a shelter that could keep a human alive under adverse environmental conditions. I mean nothing specific like that by the use of the word "need".

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#45

Post by Reedx »

sneak wrote: post #2

> We use sophisticated tools, including machine learning, to combat them, and we are making it increasingly difficult for bad actors to hide. So sophisticated that some reporter for wired could find them in the top few hundred bestsellers in a few minutes with a quick visual scan. Let’s be clear: Amazon should not be censoring legal items on their platform. However, their efforts at stopping it are purely a PR matter…

They remove massive numbers of products, though. Millions have been removed related to Coronavirus alone:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-battles-counterfeit-mask...

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#46

Post by crankylinuxuser »

tryptophan wrote: post #36
triceratops wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is evil. Buying out local inventory and selling it for a profit to the same people who would have bought it anyway isn't doing anyone a service. It's not "adding liquidity" to the market. It's not bringing more supply. It's adding a pointless middleman to a transaction that would have happened anyway - it's an inefficiency. It would be a different matter if these people were actually sourcing masks from…

Theoretically, its the stores that should be raising the pricing immediately when panics like this happen. It would dissuade people from buying more than they need, possibly in hopes of reselling, as the prices would already be elevated.

So only rich people deserve items demanded in a panic?

The proper control is limit purchase per person per day. Raising prices on things like masks in a viral contagion like this is unconscionable

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#47

Post by throwawaysea »

olalonde wrote: post #13

If only we could get rid of this widespread notion that price gouging is bad/evil...

You are 100% correct. First I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone making the right choices to obtain something that then becomes valuable at some other point. It’s not bad or evil at all.

But it’s also the optimal solution to handling demand for numerous other reasons. See https://fee.org/articles/let-prices-rise-to-combat-the-coron...

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#48

Post by throwawaysea »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #46
tryptophan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, its the stores that should be raising the pricing immediately when panics like this happen. It would dissuade people from buying more than they need, possibly in hopes of reselling, as the prices would already be elevated.

So only rich people deserve items demanded in a panic? The proper control is limit purchase per person per day. Raising prices on things like masks in a viral contagion like this is unconscionable

People should have to give up greater degrees of utility to obtain something scarce and valuable, yes. If someone rich gives up more currency to get something then so be it - they built up that currency by creating value for others in the first place.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#49

Post by epr »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #46
tryptophan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, its the stores that should be raising the pricing immediately when panics like this happen. It would dissuade people from buying more than they need, possibly in hopes of reselling, as the prices would already be elevated.

So only rich people deserve items demanded in a panic? The proper control is limit purchase per person per day. Raising prices on things like masks in a viral contagion like this is unconscionable

No one said anything about only "rich people" "deserving" anything. If you draw the conclusion that only "rich people" will have access to something if the price is higher (notice they didn't specify how much) that's fine, but don't go putting words in other people's mouths.

Re: Amazon sellers ‘hijack’ listings to sell face masks despite new rules

#50

Post by eru »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #46
tryptophan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, its the stores that should be raising the pricing immediately when panics like this happen. It would dissuade people from buying more than they need, possibly in hopes of reselling, as the prices would already be elevated.

So only rich people deserve items demanded in a panic? The proper control is limit purchase per person per day. Raising prices on things like masks in a viral contagion like this is unconscionable

Give poor people money, if you want to help them. Not queues and black markets.
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