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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

#311

Post by akkartik »

nottorp wrote: post #63

That's funny. I was scrolling down and after a while the article got covered by a popup ad with something about black friday! subscribe now! And back to Amazon, i just don't search for generic products name on there. I just go to check if they have a specific product. Same for the iOS app store etc. You just can't trust them.

I saw the popup and literally kept scrolling. Because it appeared perfectly centered on the amazon screenshot and I thought it was part of the screenshot. And as I scrolled more stuff got added to the screenshot.

It's a Poe's law world we live in.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#312

Post by noncoml »

yalogin wrote: post #306

Over the last few years Amazon has been overwhelmed by Chinese goods and over time the search results has become similar to aliexpress. I would have never heard the manufacturer’s name and will never remember them either. All of them have close to 5 star rating and there is no way to even judge if they are any good. You buy if you accept that. Feels like it’s time for this to be disrupted.

When it came to shopping I used to blindly trust Amazon. Wouldn’t even check prices anywhere else.

Now, it’s always the choice of last resort. I really don’t like it when I have to shop on Amazon.

It feels like a combination of AliExpress and eBay. Delivery times are getting worse by the day too.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#313

Post by citizenpaul »

>But now that I’m aware Amazon is playing games, I start my shopping on Google and trusted reviews sites, and then head over to Amazon only once I’ve identified what I want.

So the author has stockholm syndrome. What I do is go to the company website and see where I can order besides amazon. Though some sellers only do sell on amazon.

This is basically an echo of the Ticketmaster post a week or two ago. I hate them and they abuse me as a customer but I still keep giving them money.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#314

Post by kyleplum »

monetus wrote: post #188
moolcool wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully degradation of user experience will curb it somewhat. Sometimes the ads even betray themselves. Like I, as a rule, hate ads. I block them where I can, and where I can't, I do my best to ignore them. But then you get instances where the ad _is_ what you're actually looking for. Like if you search Amazon for "iPhone", you get official first party iPhone stuff from Apple, but they're sponsored listings. My p…

They have to buy their own keywords so that others aren't first in the listings right? They don't want Samsung to be the first thing you see. Hilarious and sad at the same time.

IMO the only thing that separates this from racketeering is that it's technically legal.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#315

Post by nicbou »

strenholme wrote: post #304

That’s why I use uBlock origin: It hides all of those Amazon ads. Also hides Twitter ads, even YouTube video ads, pretty much everything except Facebook ads (Facebook plays cat and mouse games with ad blockers). While I don’t mind YouTube ads -- I have disabled ad blockers on that domain because I’m an electronic musician myself so strongly feel it’s important to support artists and musicians -- these Amazon ads are…

This is the internet as I know it since a few years. Going without it is unbearable after just one or two pages. The cookie notices alone are unbelievable. It's wild to think that some people live with the unfiltered Internet.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#316

Post by gumby »

For the mixer example, it seems the way to do it is to go to the brand's "store".

Perhaps there is a way to get there directly but the only way I know is to search for the brand name, scroll down until one of the brand's products appears (even if the offered example isn't what you want), click on that, and then on the product page you'll see "visit the store", if there is one. I assume it's something the company has to pay for as well.

Actually I just tried searching for "kitchenaid store" and mirable dictu the first page of results was all kitchenaid products.

I would give up on Amazon but some smaller brands (e.g. Anker) sell only through Amazon.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#317

Post by fmajid »

Archipelagia wrote: post #291
fmajid wrote: post #244

Amazon is the third largest advertising company after Google and Meta. Its ad revenue is $32B (and growing fast, the run rate is $40B). That is half the revenue of AWS, which is worth 70% of Amazon's market cap. The inescapable conclusion is that Amazon's advertising is worth the remaining 30% of Amazon's market cap and Amazon's e-commerce arm is deemed worthless by Wall Street , its only purpose being to support the…

Sorry, but can you share some source for that? Like, on first page I've found in Google ( https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/amazon-revenue/ ) it says: AWS – ~17B Ads – ~9B Online stores – ~66B I actually wouldn't be surprised if I'm misunderstanding something and you're right, but can I ask where you got these numbers? Edit: On second read I realized the source I sent was misleading – the title talks about…

For AWS, 3rd quarter revenues alone were $20B, so $80B annual. I don't know where that other source of yours finds $17B, unless they are talking profit.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/aws-earnings-q3-2022.html

For the ads business, from The Information, but it's paywalled.

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-s-pain-is-ama...

the info is in the second paragraph. The conlusions are entirely mine.

The WaPo article does mention $31B for last year.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#318

Post by LadyCailin »

strenholme wrote: post #304

That’s why I use uBlock origin: It hides all of those Amazon ads. Also hides Twitter ads, even YouTube video ads, pretty much everything except Facebook ads (Facebook plays cat and mouse games with ad blockers). While I don’t mind YouTube ads -- I have disabled ad blockers on that domain because I’m an electronic musician myself so strongly feel it’s important to support artists and musicians -- these Amazon ads are…

FBPurity does a pretty good job on blocking FB ads. Not perfect, still cat and mouse, but that’s the only site it works on, so the devs spend more effort on only that.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#319

Post by hw »

VLM wrote: post #241
jabo wrote: post #53

I recently had to buy something mundane - a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec. Weeding out all the junk listings, ads and clearly fake reviews, I ended up spending an hour trying to get to the one I wanted to buy. Had a very similar experience for another product as well. At this point, I hesitate to look up stuff on Amazon just considering the time it takes to find stuff. I much rather pre…

> a light bulb, with a specific lumen and color temperature spec Sponsored links are always useless and should only be scrolled past on Amazon. Typical disappointing Amazon experience: Search for LED 8W. First result, sponsored link to an 11W bulb. Then a sponsored link to a fake marketing 21 watt bulb with fake lumen marketing. Then a sponsored link to six pack of 14W bulbs. The 4th link returned is a sponsored link…

Shopping on Amazon has been painful. Just takes so long when a few years ago it seemed as if I can trust what is sold on Amazon and search is a lot more relevant that I don't have to scroll a few pages to find what I want.

Yet I still buy almost everything on Amazon, and I still go through the pains of navigating around the sponsored products. The checkout, shipping, and returns experience is why I still use Amazon - not sure how long that lasts

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#320

Post by butMebbe »

The path to success now is still the Walmart model but you have to take longer to get there subtlety. The other Walmarts are out there monitoring for threats and will litigate!

So you have to appear novel to early adopters, and grow into being a landfills cash cow in a politically correct way.

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