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Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
61–70 of 151 posts
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#62Friendly Social Browser is pretty good for making using Third-Party webapps rather than App Store Apps as seamless as possible
Probably meant this to go somewhere else?
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#63Am I reading this right? Amazon accepted advertisers hawking junk ads which made ad prices more expensive and gave less relevant ads to their customers. This can't be a violation of any law or ethical rules... Does anyone seriously think serving only good and relevant ads is an ethical obligation. Can't retailers accept ads from anyone without vetting for quality control. The only thing I can think of here is FTC is…
Imagine what the exact same FTC would be saying if Amazon exerted control over which ads were displayed based on what converted to more product sales (and thus revenue for Amazon). Advocating for a less equal ads marketplace seems like such a strange position for the FTC to take. Are they simply throwing out every possible accusation and seeing what sticks?
The correct solution is a no ads marketplace. Where search results return what the user searched for and literally no one (not even Amazon) gets to pay to put their products at the top of the results.
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine what the exact same FTC would be saying if Amazon exerted control over which ads were displayed based on what converted to more product sales (and thus revenue for Amazon). Advocating for a less equal ads marketplace seems like such a strange position for the FTC to take. Are they simply throwing out every possible accusation and seeing what sticks?
The correct solution is a no ads marketplace. Where search results return what the user searched for and literally no one (not even Amazon) gets to pay to put their products at the top of the results.
Maybe that’s your preference, but it certainly isn’t against the law to offer advertising.
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#65I remember when DealExtreme (DX.com) was popular. I complained that their search was broken and returned to many unrelated results. Their reply was that that boosted sales. That was when I started trying to avoid them. Not the are gone.
Their discoverability was awful.
What about how AliExpress' search works? The first few listings will be prior viewed items, typically wildly unrelated to the current search-- just remarketing ads based on products visited. Then the things labeled as ads are even more outlandish and inappropriate (serums, pills, pseudo-scams)-- but I guess the ROI is there, else they wouldn't be running them. Similar to the old days of FB where any scammy rebill products were allowed, then once an advertiser base was built, they canned all of the exceptionally unscrupulous advertisers.
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#66Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The case against Microsoft was based on Microsoft giving away a free browser. That never made any antitrust sense - no consumer harm was ever demonstrated. Ironically, today every platform includes a free browser.
The case against Microsoft was that they used revenue from other markets to offer a browser for free so that they could prevent a competition in the browser space... There is an argument that the browser is a feature, not a product. But that is not the case for back then.
Both parties offered a free browser. Boo-hoo.
Have you noticed that vast categories of computer programs are free today? Do you realize that every one of those was funded by revenue obtained elsewhere?
That whole anti-trust case was chock full of jaw-dropping absurdities.
BTW, the D Language Foundation is funded by donations. We charge $0 for our products. Anyone can also fork it and do whatever they please with the fork. We particularly like it when people use it for commercial purposes, i.e. making money!
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#68Am I reading this right? Amazon accepted advertisers hawking junk ads which made ad prices more expensive and gave less relevant ads to their customers. This can't be a violation of any law or ethical rules... Does anyone seriously think serving only good and relevant ads is an ethical obligation. Can't retailers accept ads from anyone without vetting for quality control. The only thing I can think of here is FTC is…
I guess it depends on what counts as junk. It seems like allowing false advertising or outright malicious scams should be an ethical if not legal issue.
However, seeing as Amazon calls them defects, it sounds more like they're just non-relevant ads. Sellers might have a case that they were paying for some level of targeting and and getting worse click through rates than advertised.
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#69The actual FTC announcement so you don't have to visit Vice:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...
Re: Amazon execs intentionally made site shittier to rake in more profit – Lawsuit
#70I'd be curious if anyone can explain why the FTC doesn't go after Amazon for using its dominance and profits in AWS to massively subsidize its Amazon.com retail offerings (i.e. movie studio/healthcare/grocery/delivery) and undercut its competition in those spaces.
It's seem to have stopped since ZIRP has ended and Bezos has moved on but for awhile the AWS profits seem like they were feeding an ever growing conglomerate of disparate businesses with the intent of owning every market. [1]
Such actions feel somewhat similar to Microsoft using its dominance and profits from Windows to give its browser away for fee.
This ads suit seems like a distraction.
That said I'm not particularly anti-monopoly and have a Prime membership - mostly just curious.
[1] Anti-Trust Paradox - Lina M. Khan https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.p...