@dang Can we please replace the URL with the actual one, rather than a tweet pointing to it?
Amazon has a book piracy problem
111–120 of 124 posts
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon kind of gave up on discovery, at least for books, when they realized they could make more money running ads. I sell books on Amazon. Years ago, their book pages had two carousels of "similar titles" on each book detail page. Similar titles were selected by some pretty helpful algorithms based on what purchasers of the current title had also purchased, as well as some other secret sauce. At the time, ads weren'…
Amazon used to have a great recommendation page that had a tab for new releases and coming soon. This was incredible for book discovery and they got so much money from me with these pages. Amazon is currently recommending me shower heads and bathroom hardware from when I remodeled a month ago because I bought that stuff then. Pointless.
I am actually working on this very problem and trying to make book discovery magical and more of an experience, we just turned 14 months old and slowly working toward more unique approaches -> https://shepherd.com/
For now, you can look for books based on Wikipedia topic (I analyze them using NLP/ML to find connections), or via another favorite book or author. At the heart of everything is 5,000+ authors who recommend their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FTC does do some things, but below a certain threshold it doesn’t bother. There is lots and lots and lots of crime that does not get prosecuted or otherwise litigated.
Surely one of the largest businesses in America facilitating fraud en masse has to meet said threshold.
if the big 5 publishers and others would complain it would prob help.
At some point its about the amount of damages and if they can make a statement. Things move slow so it could be coming...
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
With books, Amazon has become the opposite of a search engine for me. I have to use external resources to actually find the right titles, to enter them 1:1 into Amazon search to get to the books. Context based discovery has become next to impossible (which I used it before a lot for). Something must have changed in their indexing algorithm a while ago. Also many results are flooded with garbage, like some ridiculous…
Amazon kind of gave up on discovery, at least for books, when they realized they could make more money running ads. I sell books on Amazon. Years ago, their book pages had two carousels of "similar titles" on each book detail page. Similar titles were selected by some pretty helpful algorithms based on what purchasers of the current title had also purchased, as well as some other secret sauce. At the time, ads weren'…
A store is the worst place for discovery. They want you to buy what makes them the most money. This isn't just an Amazon problem it goes for every retailer.
You cannot get good independent advice from someone who wants to make money off you.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn’t sound right. There was a thriving trade in unauthorized editions of American books in England and English books in America in the nineteenth century, since there was no mutually recognized copyright between the two countries and there was money to be made selling, e.g., Dickens’s novels in the U.S., especially if there wasn’t any need to pay the author. The ability to make photographic plates from printe…
Dickens is a pretty big outlier in sales longevity. The percentage of books that are still selling copies 100 years after they're published rounds to 0%.
This goes for most entertainment. The vast majority of books, movies and videogames have sales declining after a year.
Theoretically there is a 100 years copyright on StarCraft but I doubt a lot of people will buy it on GoG in 2050.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if they are jumping the shark? I intensely dislike the paid search results or sponsored recommendations. The nonsense-name brands that are either chinese or secretly amazon that prevent brand names from showing up (and many good brands ship counterfeits). The fake reviews. The popup "extended warranty" screens where if you close the tab/window... the item doesn't make it to your shopping basket. I remember w…
My general feeling is that commerce has jumped the shark. You can make so much more money with scamming, the honest businesses are few and far apart. And nigh impossible to identify. It doesn't feel like a platform problem, more of a societal fabric unraveling.
Everything you like is one autoupdate away from being the thing you put a lot of effort into not choosing.
What do you call this, the Rugpull Economy?
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
40 years seems excessive. I searched a bit for some reference > We find that almost all books, regardless of category, peak in the first 15 weeks after publication https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epj... A graph with sales per week/week after publication https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image... Seems that 2 years after publication the number of copies sold per week decli…
I think I like that idea more. My lean to 40 years is just to satisfy the needs of some academic IPs. I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to categorise IP duration though
I think the applications could be protectable, not the pure academic research. If there is no clear practical benefit in 10 years, do not prevent others from working on those findings to try for something more practical.
To me, 5-7 years seems reasonable for technology inventions (patents), 7-10 years for books and other art.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon kind of gave up on discovery, at least for books, when they realized they could make more money running ads. I sell books on Amazon. Years ago, their book pages had two carousels of "similar titles" on each book detail page. Similar titles were selected by some pretty helpful algorithms based on what purchasers of the current title had also purchased, as well as some other secret sauce. At the time, ads weren'…
This is somewhat of an aside about Target, but I've noticed that their inventory has moved significantly upmarket in the last 10 years or so. Their long-term strategy appears to be distinguishing themselves from the "bottom-of-the-barrel low-cost stuff" market and settling in a "low-cost but still decent stuff" niche.
Heh, I feel like that has been Target's target demographic (excuse the pun) for at least 20 years (I don't have anecdotal evidence before that). They have things that aren't designer/high cost, but at the same time are not bottom of the barrel low cost things.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#119Judging from HN comments I guess it is not that well known in the US but Book Depository [1] ships worldwide. It was founded by a former Amazon employee and acquired by Amazon.
Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem
#120Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.
With books, Amazon has become the opposite of a search engine for me. I have to use external resources to actually find the right titles, to enter them 1:1 into Amazon search to get to the books. Context based discovery has become next to impossible (which I used it before a lot for). Something must have changed in their indexing algorithm a while ago. Also many results are flooded with garbage, like some ridiculous…
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