The Anti-Amazon Alliance • Hacker News Board

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#111

Post by jldugger » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #41

koboll wrote: post #14

>as John Gruber put it on Daring Fireball, “Amazon isn’t hurting for revenue (especially now), but they are hurting for trust.” This is empirically false. Amazon is the second most-trusted brand in America . https://morningconsult.com/most-trusted-brands/ It's wild how easily SV types will tweet things like "No one trusts Amazon!" when the reality outside the Bay Area is so radically and demonstrably opposite.

Is this Simpon's paradox at work? Google is more trusted than Amazon in Gen-Z Adults, Millennials, and Gen-X, but overall Amazon beats Google. Google doesn't even make the top-25 of Boomers, but Amazon is #11. That's a little weird; does it explain the overall result?

I feellike there isn't enough dimensionality in the data for Simpson's paradox explain that.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#112

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

subhobroto wrote: post #50

lotsofpulp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The typical consumer does not care whether the IP of a company was stolen and cheap copies were made that were defective and buggy compared to the original product. They do care whether it's $9 vs $27. People might not care if they are knowingly buying a counterfeit item, but they certainly do care if they think they are getting a legitimate brand name item and then receive a different (especially inferior) product.

> People might not care if they are knowingly buying a counterfeit item, but they certainly do care if they think they are getting a legitimate brand name item and then receive a different (especially inferior) product. I personally would be very cautious if I saw a $1500 Gucci handbag on sale for $45 and expected it to be genuine. Have I come across a $1500 Gucci handbag on sale for $45 and it was genuine? Yes, at a…

I don't understand the relationship between a made up scenario about a gucci bag and my comment.

Problem # 1 is the cost of returning an item and chargebacks is very high. I (and hopefully many others) are willing to pay a premium to a vendor that performs quality checks on their vendors. It's the whole reason premium brands exist.

Problem # 2 is there exist many items which consumers are not able to easily determine the legitimacy of, for example USB wall outlet AC adapters or batteries and many other small consumer electronic items where inferior parts can be used but are indiscernible to most people.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#113

Post by softwarejosh » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

Your last point is bogus, the other are fine but you’re leaving out just how monopolized Amazon is. They have loads of shady and anti competitive practices, why anyone would overlook them is beyond me.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#114

Post by ozkan » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

Most companies are not customer obsessed, that's why they fail. Let me give you an example;

I've bought a sofa set from Coleman, and supposedly I needed to measure the door, if the sofa can fix or not. Because of the shape of the hallway and entrance, the sleeper did not fix from door. And carrier guys did not want to push further. Luckily, my patio's door was large enough to fit. I've called Coleman and explained the situation, they demanded extra money from me, to deliver through patio's door, or they were gonna send it back, which I have to pay for shipment and 15% re-stocking fee.

I come from another country, this would never be an issue. No matter what, carrier would deliver inside my home (either through front or back, or patio's door, or window), and never ask for extra.

If I would have bought from Amazon, I'm sure that I could send back, or speak for another delivery option. This is why Amazon is winning, they are customer obsessed, they are there to help, even if they lose money.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#115

Post by Rury » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #47

javajosh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>other orgs heavily micromanage or have structures that create more politics than value Isn't it hard to generalize like this? Consider Apple under Jobs: arguably Apple succeeded because of Jobs micromanagement because Jobs had (to quote Bill Gates) "great taste". Without that unifying sense of taste, you get something like Google, which is quite data-driven, and which doesn't have any unifying personality . Although…

The problem is many executives think they are Steve Jobs. When in reality almost nobody is as visionary as Steve Jobs.

I think the problem is actually what Steve Jobs had once mentioned [1]. Companies get taken over by sales/marketing teams as a company grows in size, and the product/customer focused people get removed from the decision making.

The quality of the companies products then stagnate or rot, as the product people are always in a rush to meet the requests of upper management - who of which have no idea what it takes to make a good product. So everyone's being micromanaged to meet stupid metrics - rather than the outcome - a good product.

As so it's not so much about micromanagement, as so much as having the best decision makers throughout the company. But none of this matters much when you're big, or have a monopoly...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#116

Post by camelite » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

tracer4201 wrote: post #69

dllthomas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A contract killer is also responding to market forces. Sometimes people are willing to pay for things we don't want to allow them, and we judge (and punish) the people who provide them. I'm not taking a position on monstrosity, or lack there of, but the reasoning provided seems flawed.

Are you saying Amazons business model is comparable to someone who murders people for a living? Lol what?

It's proof by contradiction. He's responding to somebody saying that Bezos is not a monster (because) he is just responding to market forces. But if you follow that logic, neither is a contract killer. But a contract killer is a monster. So, by contradiction, Bezos is not acquitted just because he is responding to market forces.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#117

Post by timwaagh » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

I'm pretty sure Amazon runs a tight ship, but isn't the real issue just trust? I know i can trust Amazon to deliver the goods and a few other large Amazon-like sites I can also trust but I have had trouble with some smaller etailers so i only use those if i have to. Just this week I had a lunchbox not get shipped because they were out of stock. Not just that (I should not have been able to buy it if they werent able to deliver) but I actually had to email them before they noticed it and paid back the money.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#118

Post by DanCarvajal » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

ranman wrote: post #83

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

As an amazon employee: >There's little place to hide at Amazon Meh. I definitely know of teams that slack off for multiple years.

I assume that was what the team that made the Fire Phone was doing.

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#119

Post by jes5199 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

logicslave wrote: post #71

jes5199 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you talked to engineers who actually work at Amazon? they aren’t exactly running a tight ship. Market forces can make up for having a dysfunctional culture. This is roughly analogous to the role of luck in personal success- people say “I must have done something right!” when in reality you have far less control than you imagine

Really? The parts of Amazon that matter, like retail and AWS, have very high engineering standards.

I have a friend who recently managed to spend 6 months without writing a single line of code, just getting shuffled from team to team (within Amazon retail), going to meetings, being reassigned, but not ever really being asked to do anything

Re: The Anti-Amazon Alliance

#120

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

zbobet2012 wrote: post #11

softwaredoug wrote: post #4

As a consultant, I see companies struggling to compete with Amazon (or Amazon-like companies). Most companies struggle for a couple of reasons - They are ego driven, with legacy execs & others relentlessly protecting their status - whereas Amazon is relentlessly data-driven - They have poor incentive structures and are feature factories. They value velocity over outcomes. Amazon, by being more data driven, is focused…

I agree with your points, but I've also found another one that is far more common: They sell products at a loss to gain income in other places. For example, if you are a content producer you are competing with a company that sells "ad-free" video (Prime Video) attached to a low-cost service (Prime) so that they can sell more goods online. Amazon is killing content producers by running a negative margin content busine…

> "You can't afford to compete with them, because they are not _even trying_ to make a profit in your sector."

GIMP hasn't killed Photoshop. It's all about giving value for money, or at least the perception thereof.