Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad • Hacker News Board

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#381

Post by fmajid » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #146

groestl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you so sure you’re not getting ripped off? If you do not _feel_ you've been ripped off, does it matter?

Yes. I bought a ladle from Amazon. I noticed from some of the comments that a lot of people were getting a knock off ladle. When I arrived, I checked to see if it was legitimate, and… it was not. It was a knock-off. It was fine as a ladle. It ladled things. I never would’ve noticed or complained if I hadn’t seen the rules. No harm, no foul, right? Absolutely not. That day I made a rule that I do not buy anything that…

Or anything that involves electricity.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#382

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:25 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #55

xadhominemx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your preferred alternatives?

Target Home Depot Best Buy Walmart (this is getting polluted with "vendors")

Walmart doesn't seem to ship almost anything in my area, it seems to show In Store Pickup only for just about all the items.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#383

Post by wpietri » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

fhd2 wrote: post #58

wpietri wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been weaning myself off Amazon for a while. Now if I'm shopping for something my general approach is to a) look for neutral reviews (e.g. Wirecutter and Consumer Reports), b) see if I can buy it from whoever makes it, and c) search on shopping.google.com to look for reasonable prices from some other vendor. This is undeniably a little more work that just searching on Amazon and buying the first option. But…

I started doing the same 1-2 years ago! Felt bad about giving Jeff Bezos so much money. At first I thought it was gonna be an impossible effort, but since I'd take Google over Amazon any day (although also not super happily), I do a lot of the last mile (finding a good/non-shady offer for a specific product I've already decided to buy through reviews) there. And usually I find it cheaper with equally fast shipping. F…

For sure. Other places have gotten better, and Amazon has gotten worse for me. The way I interpret it is that Amazon started out with a really strong customer focus, but they've shifted more and more toward revenue maximization at my expense.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#384

Post by blamazon » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

zwkrt wrote: post #362

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…

This reminds me that as far as wall street is concerned, it is actually an afterthought that airlines operate airplanes, all the money is in the credit cards.

Making and selling TVs is similarly an afterthought for TV manufacturers now that smart TVs have been commodified, the money is in the analytics platforms.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#385

Post by diogofranco » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:28 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #336

throwaway5752 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a well-established concept called https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sumofpartsvaluation.asp . A company's value is estimated on net present value (npv) of its projected, discounted future cash flows. If a company has a large, stable subsidiary that is growing slowly but is cash flow positive and a very fast growing but money losing subsidiary, it makes more sense to value parent company as if both subsidiari…

Yes I understand NPV and DCF but not OPs point. The eCommerce arm makes a lot of money so I don’t understand how you could come to the conclusion that its present value is zero.

It made less than no money recently. You might be thinking of revenue.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#386

Post by unnouinceput » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

I can die peacefully now. I lived to see a negative article in Washington Post about Amazon. Did I missed something? Is WP no longer Jeff's vomit (like the flurry of articles about how bad Amazon's worker doing a union would be for them, that flooded WP not even a year ago)?

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#387

Post by MichaelCollins » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:33 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #296

candiddevmike wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I applaud anyone who leaves a non 5 star review, gets contacted by the company with bribes to make it 5 stars, and updates their review to report the company doing that.

They don't need to bribe anymore. Negative reviews get removed pretty easily. It's happened to me. It's the new normal. Airbnb is even worse, they used to (and still might) actually have customer service edit reviews. Your review will get removed with no notice, Amazon will let you know. If you remove some or most negative reviews but leave positive ones, what do you get.

Apparently Airbnb will delete any review that criticizes a property for something the property owner can't fix. Loud traintracks with trains blasting by at 3am every morning? That's not the property owner's fault, so that's a bad review.

As if reviews exist only to give constructive feedback to property owners, rather than to warn other renters away from a bad experience!

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#388

Post by prmoustache » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

sanitycheck wrote: post #246

My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too): 1. Search for thing 2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon 4: Filter by reviews: 4 stars+ 5: Sort by price, Low > High 6: (Further filters as appropriate) 7: Look at only products with a high number of reviews 8: For every product, "See all reviews" and filter on "Verified purchase only" and "Show…

My process for getting usable results on Amazon is to simply not use it. For any item you can think of there is an online shop dedicated to the specialty that is:

- cheaper

- easiest to search

- do not sell knockoffs, counterfeits and fake products

I know some people will raise the "you need to create another account for it annoyance" but it is not that annoying when you are using a password manager and the additionnal time spent could even be considered a feature to avoid compulsive buying.

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#389

Post by syrrim » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

MichaelCollins wrote: post #387

mancerayder wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to bribe anymore. Negative reviews get removed pretty easily. It's happened to me. It's the new normal. Airbnb is even worse, they used to (and still might) actually have customer service edit reviews. Your review will get removed with no notice, Amazon will let you know. If you remove some or most negative reviews but leave positive ones, what do you get.

Apparently Airbnb will delete any review that criticizes a property for something the property owner can't fix. Loud traintracks with trains blasting by at 3am every morning? That's not the property owner's fault, so that's a bad review. As if reviews exist only to give constructive feedback to property owners, rather than to warn other renters away from a bad experience!

"Property owner has not done enough to soundproof the unit against nearby train noise"

Re: Almost everything on Amazon is becoming an ad

#390

Post by FeistySkink » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 8:36 PM UTC

sanitycheck wrote: post #246

My process for getting usable results on Amazon (.co.uk, presumably the others too): 1. Search for thing 2. Filter by department (necessary for 3) 3. Filter by Seller: only Amazon 4: Filter by reviews: 4 stars+ 5: Sort by price, Low > High 6: (Further filters as appropriate) 7: Look at only products with a high number of reviews 8: For every product, "See all reviews" and filter on "Verified purchase only" and "Show…

I'm skeptical of #8. I sometimes leave detailed reviews for items that I purchased or used elsewhere and have a deep understanding of to dissuade other people from buying. Especially for new products that are being overhyped on YT or through Amazon Vine (how is that even a thing), even though they are of dubious quality. I have quite a few non-verified reviews that are voted most helpful, but Amazon obviously prioritized Vine reviews, even when they don't have any votes.