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Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 510 posts

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#31
post #10

Time for somebody to make an alternative interface, like teddit.com. I imagine this could be done with front-end code only.

CORS, unless it is run locally, plus you'll have to reverse engineer the APIs. Might be easier to write a browser plugin that improves the current UI

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#32
post #2

Amazon is unusable at this point, and I don’t get how they have so many customers. Free and fast shipping is no longer exclusive to them, and there are others out there with far nicer websites and no shitty ad listings.

- I get items in 1-2 days including fairly niche items. Some items take longer but it's clear which ones and those are just as slow elsewhere.

- I see reviews for the items and some of them aren't fake. The negative reviews with specific issues are particularly important (weak hinge, plastic parts, noisy, difficult warranty support, etc.). I know some other marketplaces either don't have reviews (ebay) or can trivially remove negative reviews (shopify sites).

- I can return items without too much hassle.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#33

This article was full of ads, many of which had no relationship to the article I was reading. In the early 2000s, I dont remember this being a problem. It is not your imagination, reading on WaPo has gotten worse.

I think the point of the article is that the ads are incredibly deceptive, not that they just exist. Wapo ads aren’t really trying to trick you, the Amazon ones absolutely are.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#34
It’s refreshing to see this in the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. Tiny beacon of hope going out into the darkness.

Search ads on shopping websites are just capitalism taken to the natural end. Hopefully degradation of user experience will curb it somewhat. Our only other option is some sort of new Internet Bill of Rights being passed and I’m not optimistic lobbyists would ever allow it. We need some sort of fund for humanity that hires lobbyists with greater funds. We need voters that vote for candidates that would support the human right to freedom from manipulation from corporations.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#35
The article speaks of a tipping point and has aided in pulling it forward.

Unlimited greed is what eventually sinks a company. We saw it with AltaVista in the '90's (when the search results were all ads) and Google is slowly repeating this opening a space for a competitor to jump into.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only need to buy something online every couple months, maybe once a month at most. I hate shopping so I'll be damned if I will spend 1 more second thinking about the process than I have to. Amazon always has the thing, ships it in 2 days, I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% and that's good enough for me. I've never had any issues with fakes that HN complains about all the time.…

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

> How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off?

If you do not _feel_ you've been ripped off, does it matter?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#37
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your preferred alternatives?

Yes. The alternative is track down the original, individual vendor and deal with their custom sign up, shopping cart, shipping, and support on their site. Repeat with each different vendor for next purchase. As much as Amazon hates its customers and vendors, it's got a consistent experience.

What's wrong with target.com?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#39
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only need to buy something online every couple months, maybe once a month at most. I hate shopping so I'll be damned if I will spend 1 more second thinking about the process than I have to. Amazon always has the thing, ships it in 2 days, I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% and that's good enough for me. I've never had any issues with fakes that HN complains about all the time.…

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

> Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling?

I have also had a bad experience with "Sold by Amazon.com" so I'm not questioning the veracity of what you are saying. But how does this work? How can someone get a counterfeit product under this umbrella?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only need to buy something online every couple months, maybe once a month at most. I hate shopping so I'll be damned if I will spend 1 more second thinking about the process than I have to. Amazon always has the thing, ships it in 2 days, I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% and that's good enough for me. I've never had any issues with fakes that HN complains about all the time.…

> I can be relatively sure I'm not getting ripped off by more than +/- 25% I think this is the only thing keeping them afloat. How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? Did you know counterfeits can be sold under the “sold by anazon.com” branding because of co-mingling? I used to have the same view as you until I started getting shoddy products consistently from brands that were otherwise high quality if I p…

I mean literally the next sentence after your quote says "I've never had any issues with fakes that HN complains about all the time" so I'm pretty positive they do know about it.
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