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The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

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Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#21

Post by jhbadger »

joenot443 wrote: post #6

It's sort of funny - the author's first complaint was about the query "purple wig". Perhaps I'm getting better results since I'm using an adblocker, but is this not what the author was after? [1] I see lots of wigs in lots of different styles, all purple, all around $20. If I went to a costume store it'd be a little cheaper, but that's the idea of Amazon, is it not? They're concerned they've never heard of the brands…

I think the argument was there was no way to know which (if any) of the wigs were good quality because of their weird off-brand status as opposed to branded Raquel Welch, Jon Renau, etc. Of course many of the off brand wigs may be made in the same factory as the big names, but it is impossible to tell.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#22

Post by crazygringo »

tivert wrote: post #3
cratermoon wrote: post #2

https://archive.ph/Kz0Rn “around every corner lies a brand you’ve never heard of, selling a product you’re not sure about” Enshittified

> “around every corner lies a brand you’ve never heard of, selling a product you’re not sure about” And whenever you feel that, hop on AliExpress and find the exact same thing for about a tenth the price.

Can you give an example?

I keep hearing this, and I've started looking on AliExpress, and the prices are only a little bit cheaper, but the shipping takes forever.

Like I recently was looking into desk globes, and the first one that popped up in search is $16 on AliExpress with 4-week shipping, or $20 on Amazon with 1-day shipping:

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802137627481.html

https://www.amazon.com/TTKTK-Decorative-Geography-Educationa...

And this seems pretty representative. I've never found a single case where it was worth it to buy with AliExpress. Especially since I know I can return anything on Amazon pretty effortlessly, whereas with AliExpress I have no idea.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#23

Post by tivert »

crazygringo wrote: post #22
tivert wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “around every corner lies a brand you’ve never heard of, selling a product you’re not sure about” And whenever you feel that, hop on AliExpress and find the exact same thing for about a tenth the price.

Can you give an example? I keep hearing this, and I've started looking on AliExpress, and the prices are only a little bit cheaper, but the shipping takes forever. Like I recently was looking into desk globes, and the first one that popped up in search is $16 on AliExpress with 4-week shipping, or $20 on Amazon with 1-day shipping: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802137627481.html https://www.amazon.com/TTKTK-Deco…

$15.99 for 1x https://www.amazon.com/Works-Portable-Emergency-Re-Charger-B...

$10.49 + $5.16 shipping ($15.65) for 5x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805076529896.html?spm=a2g...

$1.50 + $2.59 shipping ($4.09) for 1x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803289357326.html?spm=a2g...

Literally the exact same thing.

I tend to use AliExpress for small electronic doodads and things like battery boxes. I'm not some AliExpress wizard, but I don't think the shipping is fixed per item (and I'm usually ordering several) and I think sometimes they batch orders together (which may lower the shipping price?). I don't know how to get a breakdown of the shipping cost I actually paid, which is one of the things that annoys me about the site.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#24

Post by yunwal »

crazygringo wrote: post #20
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on top of all that they're all hazardous and made poorly and pay people to lie to you about them being hazardous and made poorly. This is great!

I know it's funny and a whole trope to say that, but in my experience they're not. On the whole, they do their job just as well as anything else. After all, most of your name-brand stuff is coming from the same types of factories in China anyways. And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. Just like you should with any product you're considering purchasing. Now grante…

> And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those.

This has to be a joke, right?

It’s nearly impossible to filter by legitimate unpaid-human reviews on Amazon.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#25

Post by slowmovintarget »

cratermoon wrote: post #2

https://archive.ph/Kz0Rn “around every corner lies a brand you’ve never heard of, selling a product you’re not sure about” Enshittified

I choose to call it "fuzzed." The level of noise has increased to make it much harder to detect the signal. This is not about predatory monetization.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#26

Post by crazygringo »

yunwal wrote: post #24
crazygringo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's funny and a whole trope to say that, but in my experience they're not. On the whole, they do their job just as well as anything else. After all, most of your name-brand stuff is coming from the same types of factories in China anyways. And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. Just like you should with any product you're considering purchasing. Now grante…

> And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. This has to be a joke, right? It’s nearly impossible to filter by legitimate unpaid-human reviews on Amazon.

Of course it's not a joke. It's easy to filter for only negative reviews, and obviously none of the negative reviews are paid.

If it's a popular product and all the negative reviews are dumb complaints about shipping speed, the product is probably fine. If all the negative reviews are about how the handle snaps off by the third time you use it, then don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many paid 5-star reviews there are.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#27

Post by crazygringo »

tivert wrote: post #23
crazygringo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example? I keep hearing this, and I've started looking on AliExpress, and the prices are only a little bit cheaper, but the shipping takes forever. Like I recently was looking into desk globes, and the first one that popped up in search is $16 on AliExpress with 4-week shipping, or $20 on Amazon with 1-day shipping: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802137627481.html https://www.amazon.com/TTKTK-Deco…

$15.99 for 1x https://www.amazon.com/Works-Portable-Emergency-Re-Charger-B... $10.49 + $5.16 shipping ($15.65) for 5x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805076529896.html?spm=a2g... $1.50 + $2.59 shipping ($4.09) for 1x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803289357326.html?spm=a2g... Literally the exact same thing. I tend to use AliExpress for small electronic doodads and things like battery boxes. I'm not some AliExp…

Thanks. I guess I realize I'm talking about items that people are actually buying -- those show 1, 0, and 2 reviews.

Just because when a product has virtually no reviews, the price is often temporarily crazy cheap (including on Amazon) as they're just trying to get people to buy and review it in the first place. Or it's basically a scam listing with a crazy high price so nobody's touching it except for a few people who aren't paying attention. So unpopular products don't make for a great comparison.

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#28

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

crazygringo wrote: post #26
yunwal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if the product is bad, people leave negative reviews, and it's easy to filter for those. This has to be a joke, right? It’s nearly impossible to filter by legitimate unpaid-human reviews on Amazon.

Of course it's not a joke. It's easy to filter for only negative reviews, and obviously none of the negative reviews are paid. If it's a popular product and all the negative reviews are dumb complaints about shipping speed, the product is probably fine. If all the negative reviews are about how the handle snaps off by the third time you use it, then don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many paid 5-star reviews there a…

> If it's a popular product and

I find it quite weird to acknowledge in one breath that positive reviews have been paid for while also assuming in the next that a product with many reviews is popular and hasn't just acquired the mass of its reviews fraudulently. What steps are involved in determining legitimate popularity?

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#29

Post by tivert »

crazygringo wrote: post #27
tivert wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$15.99 for 1x https://www.amazon.com/Works-Portable-Emergency-Re-Charger-B... $10.49 + $5.16 shipping ($15.65) for 5x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805076529896.html?spm=a2g... $1.50 + $2.59 shipping ($4.09) for 1x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803289357326.html?spm=a2g... Literally the exact same thing. I tend to use AliExpress for small electronic doodads and things like battery boxes. I'm not some AliExp…

Thanks. I guess I realize I'm talking about items that people are actually buying -- those show 1, 0, and 2 reviews. Just because when a product has virtually no reviews, the price is often temporarily crazy cheap (including on Amazon) as they're just trying to get people to buy and review it in the first place. Or it's basically a scam listing with a crazy high price so nobody's touching it except for a few people w…

> Thanks. I guess I realize I'm talking about items that people are actually buying -- those show 1, 0, and 2 reviews.

IIRC, AliExpress lists items by "shop," and it honestly it doesn't seem like the listings last very long for stuff like this. I have no reason to believe any one of them are "better," so I just buy from the cheapest one.

Even for Amazon listings for stuff like this, the listing come and go. For that AA power bank, this is the one I got initially (7 years ago), but the listing is no longer active: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HCBHZV2/. It had 97 reviews.

However, in this category, I tend to ignore reviews. None of the products are high quality or objectively good, but they're cheap enough (especially on AliExpress) that I'm fine taking the risk.

-----

Here's another comparison for something else I know about

$13.79 for 1x: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013FANC9W/

$1.88 + $2.44 shipping ($4.36) for 1x https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832834613884.html?spm=a2g...

Re: The Best Thing About Amazon Was Never Going to Last

#30

Post by crazygringo »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #28
crazygringo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's not a joke. It's easy to filter for only negative reviews, and obviously none of the negative reviews are paid. If it's a popular product and all the negative reviews are dumb complaints about shipping speed, the product is probably fine. If all the negative reviews are about how the handle snaps off by the third time you use it, then don't buy it. It doesn't matter how many paid 5-star reviews there a…

> If it's a popular product and I find it quite weird to acknowledge in one breath that positive reviews have been paid for while also assuming in the next that a product with many reviews is popular and hasn't just acquired the mass of its reviews fraudulently. What steps are involved in determining legitimate popularity?

I don't get your point. Amazon literally tells you things like "400+ people bought this in the past month". On top of category rankings like "#3 in iPad stands". It's easy to tell if it's popular or not, if it's something people are actively buying.

If a product is bad, some of those people will be leaving negative reviews, regardless of the number of paid reviews.

Does that make sense? Zero weird about it.

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