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I would rather see my books get pirated than this

janefriedman.com

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Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#131

Post by scubbo »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #43
projectileboy wrote: post #26

Haha… Amazon, you say? You mean the large money laundering operation, putting third party counterfeit goods in the same warehouse bins as legitimate goods from legitimate suppliers, so that as a consumer you never know if you’re going to get counterfeit goods? Yes, that’s the Amazon we know and love.

It's amazing how many people aren't aware of this. This should be way more publicized. I was talking to a business partner a while back and mentioned I'm not using Amazon and they were shocked. When I listed all my reasons and this one came up, they didn't believe me and we stopped talking until they looked it up online and were convinced. They were using Amazon to order all supplements and it stopped then and there.

Anecdotally, among my social group, almost everyone has heard of it, and no-one has ever experienced it.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#132

Post by r00fus »

pessimizer wrote: post #79
Legend2440 wrote: post #2

Sounds like an Amazon problem, not an AI problem. Amazon doesn't seem to curate their marketplace at all. It's full of fake products and no-name chinese vendors selling low-quality goods.

It's a toilet. I can't figure out how to trust any listing there. I stopped ordering from there not because I was protesting or anything, I was just sick of annoying Amazon support, who are nice people having a long day. I've had less suffering and better results buying things from random people on Craigslist. I'm an Amazon nightmare. They see my account going from ordering every other day 25 years ago, often big tic…

Same here - I order like 1-2 times a quarter from them, but I used to order 1-2 times a week. Quit Prime too.

I still find stuff on there that I'm willing to gamble on, and it arrives very fast but it's usually small ticky tacky items (e.g. an adapter/mount for something on my bike etc).

There is a large population that's not us however, who simply want the cheapest thing that fits the bill and don't know about their FBA dishonesty.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#133

Post by 8bitsrule »

Amazon, Goodreads have access to a complete list of the titles, ISBN's, OCLC, publisher, etc. that can be used to verify what books were created by a particular author. The name (pseudonym perhaps) is only one element in the readily-verifiable chain of her career and an effed-up excuse for plugging ears to her complaint. Just one more reason to stay away from these online robber barons.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#134

Post by coliveira »

fractallyte wrote: post #90

Books are published - either by a publisher , or by the author . That's the equivalent of a 'checksum'. The author should be able to provide to Amazon/Goodreads a list of publishers for their book. Any publisher not on this list should be prevented from selling the title. If someone wants to impersonate an author, they'd have to also impersonate a publisher - a much bigger legal risk. Simple solution.

For many self published authors there is just one publisher: Amazon itself.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#135

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

nomat wrote: post #44

I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be ge…

This is exactly how it works today. Just with "copywriters" instead of "AI".

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#136

Post by interestica »

Fricken wrote: post #127
labster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.

This might be why physical bookstores are making a comeback. Trustworthy curation is essential, and worth paying a premium for. This has always been the case, but maybe not fully appreciated.

This has been why I've started to really like Costco -- they're essentially acting as product curators (and back it up with a generous return policy.)

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#137

Post by shinycode »

ghaff wrote: post #71
stevage wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine everything constantly hovering on the threshold of what is tolerable enough for most people. If you could never buy anything useful on the internet, the system would collapse and people would do something different. But instead, the quality etc will just decline to a point where it is still marginally better than alternatives like shopping in person etc.

People who can afford to do so will perhaps just pay 2x to 3x to shop a more limited selection from personally curated stores.

Unfortunately if you so create a new product or service it’ll be really hard to find you this way and it might require a lot more money and effort to reach out to the audience.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#138

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

wpietri wrote: post #55
nomat wrote: post #44

I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be ge…

Yeah, my big concern about LLMs is not Skynet or a zillion people out of work. It's that the spammers and their ilk are now vastly more capable. The fact that generative LLMs are glib bullshit machines is a problem for most sane uses, but a plus for people who don't give two shits about the truth as long as they've got a chance of making some money.

This, but also in the professional space. My coworkers much be 200% faster now, but I’m going to spend 80% of my time unfucking their work.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#139

Post by kelnos »

VincentEvans wrote: post #128

Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone…

I agree that this is ridiculous, but blame Apple and Google for wanting their 30% cut of digital goods; I think Amazon is actually right to refuse to play ball on this. Regardless, though, once you know how to do it, you only have to do two of those steps, which seems... fine?

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#140

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #138
wpietri wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my big concern about LLMs is not Skynet or a zillion people out of work. It's that the spammers and their ilk are now vastly more capable. The fact that generative LLMs are glib bullshit machines is a problem for most sane uses, but a plus for people who don't give two shits about the truth as long as they've got a chance of making some money.

This, but also in the professional space. My coworkers much be 200% faster now, but I’m going to spend 80% of my time unfucking their work.

But also good luck next time you google health symptoms - sure it’s bad, but everybody does it, and we’re going to move further and further away from accurate.
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