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Audiblegate

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Re: Audiblegate

#121

Post by a2800276 »

Abodono wrote: post #108
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

> Maybe it's greed in this case, but in my time at Amazon I saw many teams in "Keep Lights On" mode where one or two people with vague memories of how services are supposed to work try to keep them running I worked for Amazon as well, and I'd say it is greed, not in that the behavior was purposely designed to be malicious, but in the way they don't properly fund developers to work through their tech depts, and spend…

I'm always amazed that people can't see this as greed. If the CEO of a medical equipment company said: "screw all these expensive software engineers, physicists and testers, I have a 14 year old niece who can code up our radiation therapy machine for nickels" no one would be blaming incompetence of devs. I don't see how all the lack of solid requirements, software development process, testing and means of recourse are any different, apart from the potential consequences being non fatal, obviously.

Re: Audiblegate

#122

Post by [deleted] »

matsemann wrote: post #106
jsnell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site has more details in other articles. They're not worth reading. There's no substance just a lot of charged language. And I'm really annoyed at spending any time at all on reading this. The narrators don't get paid by the retail price (and the contract doesn't suggest they would). Basically Audible splits the money spent on credits among the books that the credits were spent on in proportion to the number of c…

> Apparently that floor is being hit every time, i.e. Audible is paying them more than they are actually required by the contract. The author thinks this is a smoking gun that proves how they're being cheated, which is an odd take. You think it is fair that Amazon sets an arbitrary low price, and then makes the authors take the cost. That's an odder take. If Amazon wants to sell their tokens at price X, have a campai…

[deleted]

Re: Audiblegate

#123

Post by mejutoco »

tjbiddle wrote: post #78
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

"Never assume malice for that which can be better explained by incompetence"

"Never say never"

Re: Audiblegate

#124

Post by boobsbr »

phs318u wrote: post #55

I don't doubt that Amazon's practices are shady. Creating obscure and complex pricing plans out of seemingly straightforward fees has become something of an art-form on AWS. Who here has not been hit with an unexpected charge? What I honestly find hard to believe though, is the popularity of audio-books. How do you all focus on the material if you're doing other things? Or am I mistakenly assuming the mode of consump…

I just listen to then when I'm doing menial work, like doing the dishes, or folding clothes; or when I'm lying in bed.

Re: Audiblegate

#125

Post by netcan »

bawolff wrote: post #87
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

As they say, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"

This is an important cliche to keep in mind, but the problem is that "games" play out. Incompetence can become willful or even strategic. Even if it doesn't start or develop as a mustache twirling plan, a year later someone might look at it and say "looks like it makes money, why fix it."

Re: Audiblegate

#126

Post by radicalbyte »

makeitdouble wrote: post #51
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

I think it happens a lot more than people want to acknowledge. I worked on a discount calculating service with no prior knowledge.It was supposed to replicate an existing system, so we went through the oroginal specs and general litterature to get a sense of what we were supposed to make. First day of test with a employee in the field, and it appears that they have specific calculation rules that are so obvious to th…

This is a universal problem, it's so universal that there's even a field of development which solves the problem - Domain-Driven Design.

It's not exactly rocket-science either - you basically involve domain experts in the development proces directly, and codify their knowledge in a form that they can understand (be that very explicit models, or focussed domain-specific languages).

Re: Audiblegate

#127

Post by UweSchmidt »

tjbiddle wrote: post #78
ALittleLight wrote: post #27

I worked on a tool at Amazon once that incorrectly calculated royalties, not because Amazon was greedily trying to steal from publishers, but just because of general incompetence (or, lack of sufficient competence maybe). Basically, of the people who wrote the tool, tested the tool, and used the tool, none of them knew exactly how royalties should be calculated and none of them could tell whether or not they were bei…

"Never assume malice for that which can be better explained by incompetence"

It's the other way 'round. We're all good at tacitly accepting broken processes if it benefits us but will quickly fix things if opportune.

Re: Audiblegate

#128

Post by AussieWog93 »

bitcharmer wrote: post #111
tjbiddle wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Never assume malice for that which can be better explained by incompetence"

I don't like this saying because it generalises too much. For example, if you follow this line of thought you'd never investigate murderous cops simply because their cameras where turned off due to their incompetence rather than purposeful, malicious action.

"Attempting to invalidate random quotes you read on the internet by taking them to logical extremes is kind of missing the point."

- Albert Einstein

Re: Audiblegate

#129

Post by artemonster »

langsoul-com wrote: post #115

His call to action sucked. Should've listed good alternatives. At the end of the day, people will get their audio books, creators be damned.

Sometimes there are none. Sometimes you have to pay more for less convenient service if you have your principles. And people really do that, you cant always have your cake and eat it too.

Re: Audiblegate

#130

Post by koide »

bitcharmer wrote: post #112
bawolff wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say, "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence"

I'll just copy my comment from another leaf of this thread: I don't like this saying because it generalises too much. For example, if you follow this line of thought you'd never investigate murderous cops simply because their cameras where turned off due to their incompetence rather than purposeful, malicious action.

You're misunderstanding the quote. It doesn't mean to never investigate, but to never start with the assumption that it is malice. You can complement it with the famous "trust, but verify" quote. Or with "giving the benefit of the doubt".
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