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Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#41

Post by markbnj »

d23 wrote: post #29
justapassenger wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Main reason I still use them is 100% hassle free return policy. I don’t stress about buying something crappy, as I know I can return it, in very convenient ways.

For some reason that changed for me lately and they no longer do free UPS pickup for returns. I have to go mail them myself, which tips the balance of the return convenience scale for me.

I rarely have to return things, but when I do have to return something purchased on Amazon it's basically: couple of clicks, get a QR in email, walk into the local UPS store with the item and hand it over, quick scan of the QR and done. Yeah it would be nice if they just sent someone to the house to get the item, but it doesn't surprise me that the economics of that don't work out.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#42

Post by moolcool »

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon

https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png

The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for page after page. It used to be that you could count on Amazon to give you pretty solid results when you wanted something. It was great, it really took the fuss out of shopping when you didn't have to do 10 google searches when you needed to buy a USB cable or something. Now Amazon is nothing more than AliExpress with faster shipping. Shame.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#43

Post by mynameisvlad »

secondcoming wrote: post #17
aslilac wrote: 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.

Yes, the proliferation of stuff being sold by six letter Chinese sellers is incredible. It’s basically Ali Express but with faster shipping.

Why is that a problem if the items work for their intended purpose?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#44

Post by xdavidliu »

hermannj314 wrote: post #20

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.

Firefox with ublock origin solves this problem easily.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#46

Post by stavros »

moolcool wrote: post #42

It runs deeper than just everything being an ad. It's also completely flooded with rebadged junk from dropshippers. A few weeks ago, I was looking for a new whetstone, and this is what I got when I searched Amazon https://i.imgur.com/1Utp2dF.png The results keep going like that. You see constant repetition of the exact same units with slightly different branding, often with the same stock photography, repeated for pa…

I was about to say when I saw the end of your comment, that looks very much like the AliExpress experience. You get cheap stuff, but you gamble on them being a fake.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#49

Post by marginalia_nu »

UltraViolence wrote: post #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.

> 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.

I'm not sure this is a helpful characterization. Greed is also what helped the same companies get where they were before they went to shit.

The problem is that you can only grow so far in a market before the only way to keep the appearance of growth is to make your product worse, either by producing it cheaper (like Toblerone) or by monetizing it harder (e.g. ads in paid video subscriptions).

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