Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

searchengineland.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 721 posts

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#601

Post by emptysongglass »

Propelloni wrote: post #504
genewitch wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tariffs that were announced during the campaign - the same way Ross Perot did - and the reasoning was to bring us manufacturing back to the US and reduce the tax burden on US citizens? Such as writing off car payments if the car is American? People wigged out over non-reciprocal tariffs, where we tariff at 50% what they charge the US. People wigged out at 10℅ flat rate tariffs. "Heard island penguins get charged…

The USA and the EU more or less have had even import duties. The USA averaging out at 1.47 % and the EU at 1.39 %. [1] The EU has been advocating for a free-trade agreement, the TTIP, with the USA from 2013 on. It was buried in 2016 by the 45th president of the USA, who somehow thought it unfair. The EU has proposed a free-trade agreement only a few weeks ago. [2] You may believe what you want, but at least in dealin…

Hold on now. For consumers, the only thing that's mattered as far as we're concerned is the fact the US had de minimis, which effectively meant no duties paid on all relevant goods a US consumer might want.

The EU, on the other hand, has made buying goods from the US, for consumers, horrifically expensive, including reducing the value of non-duty paid goods to essentially zero and leaving it up to EU member countries to decide if they then wanted to charge an additional "inspection fee" often more than the value of the goods themselves. Spoiler: those countries did.

So, your point isn't really relevant from a consumer point of view. The EU and its member states have tried every dirty trick in the book to make it as awful as possible to buy anything from the US.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#602

Post by maxwell »

eCa wrote: post #530
genewitch wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tariffs that were announced during the campaign - the same way Ross Perot did - and the reasoning was to bring us manufacturing back to the US and reduce the tax burden on US citizens? Such as writing off car payments if the car is American? People wigged out over non-reciprocal tariffs, where we tariff at 50% what they charge the US. People wigged out at 10℅ flat rate tariffs. "Heard island penguins get charged…

> reduce the tax burden on US citizens Do you consider the tariffs to be a (tax) burden on US citizens?

Only on those who buy imports.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#603

Post by maxwell »

realo wrote: post #572
burningChrome wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main purpose of tariffs is to change behavior for both the consumer and the manufacturers. Auto manufacturers have been doing this for decades when the US started imposing tariffs on Japanese manufacturers back in the 1970's. To get around the tariffs and still get access to the US markets, they would simply assemble the parts of the cars here and bypass the rules of the tariffs. Many companies then started doing…

The Donald tariffs certainly changed my behavior as a Canadian consumer. For example, i stopped buying US wine, US orange juice and I keep an eye open for any US made thing I could remove from my environment.

Nice, you found Canadian wine and orange juice?

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#604

Post by maxwell »

ThenAsNow wrote: post #588
aaronbaugher wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. The biggest impediment to increased manufacturing is the pile of onerous regulations, many of which were created by the stroke of a pen since 2008, and which can be removed by another stroke of the pen.

Do you have any substantiation for either the point that onerous regulations are the primary impediment or that most of these have been created since 2008 (by fiat or otherwise)? It's always going to be cheaper to make things in places where labor costs and environmental responsibility expectations are low.

> It's always going to be cheaper to make things in places where labor costs and environmental responsibility expectations are low.

Yeah, offshoring was mostly about driving down costs by laundering labor and environmental law.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#605

Post by Amezarak »

ceejayoz wrote: post #596
Amezarak wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Heard and McDonald Islands debacle was poorly reported on. It does have its own customs zone, it doesn’t fall under Australia. Some years, the World Bank has reported imports from the island: https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Yea...

I assure you the US did not import $1.3M worth of machinery from an uninhabited island. It's a data error. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/apr/04/revea...

I don’t think anyone is claiming there’s secret industry on the islands. But a “data error” is probably understating it, that is what did actually appear on the bills of lading. Whether it was a bizarre innocent mistake or sort of some kind of financial scheme is unclear.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#606

Post by jacobgkau »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #594
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to find "real brands" if one looks outside of Amazon, Alibaba, etc. Surprisingly, I find I am more pleased with purchases I make outside of Amazon despite all of Amazon's perks. "Platforms" like Amazon and fake "brands" aside, online retailers that only sell "real brands" are still around; they never disappeared despite Amazon's meteoric rise. Many sell through Amazon but also sell outside Amazon, too. Some…

I've found I buy fewer things in general, and also the things I do buy are of higher quality when I do it in person. Might even get some useful advice if it's something like a tool. Also it's just more fun, especially if it's a nice bike ride, walk, or trip on transit. > And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/K…

My girlfriend needed a humidifier last week. Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's had mostly the same 2-3 brands of single-room humidifiers, most of which were no-name companies that apparently "specialize" in humidifiers (i.e. were spun up to be a shell for selling cheap humidifiers). We found one Honeywell branded one on sale and went with that since it's a legit brand; it was defective (lots of reviews online having the same issue), so we had to return it and make a decision between Walmart's Equate brand and one of the no-name ones from Target. She wasn't sure if she wanted a larger or smaller version of the no-name one, but we ended up not having an option because the Target shelf was empty of the smaller ones. Home Depot had the same model for $10 more, but we were at Target anyway because they at least had her second choice for color, while Home Depot only had her third.

In-person shopping has become just as crappy as online shopping, with a lot of the same problems regarding quality and brand control. The only difference ends up being less options (which could make the experience less stressful, except the options are usually presented in some form anyway, they're just not available, which makes it frustrating). It's largely thanks to big-box stores, but it's not like someone can just up and start a small shop to sell a particular niche of product (let alone all products) with higher quality as easily as you could with a website.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#607

Post by maxwell »

Propelloni wrote: post #487
dingnuts wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the whole point of the tariffs. China does an end run around all of our laws, consumer safety, human rights, workers conditions, intellectual property, all that, and in doing so they cut costs and beat domestic companies at the market. Tariffs are a tax we charge to represent those things they have immorally refused to do while participating in our market. A country can't effectively have things like a minimum w…

I can see how hitting the EU with tariffs is going to improve human rights ... oh wait. But on a more serious note, tariffs could have been used for what you are saying, and it would have been a beautiful thing, but I think we can agree that's not what's happening here, can't we?

Not sure why the sarcasm. Do we keep picking up the tab until they're trampling the entire Bill of Rights?

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#608

Post by neogodless »

maxwell wrote: post #602
eCa wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reduce the tax burden on US citizens Do you consider the tariffs to be a (tax) burden on US citizens?

Only on those who buy imports.

This seems to assume that everything can be imported or acquired domestically. But tariffs implemented in other countries are much more specific. It makes sense to use tariffs when you have the capability to meet your domestic demand with domestic supply. Indiscriminate tariffs catch things where demand far exceeds domestic production, whether that's raw materials, specific foods, or things that will take a long time to ramp up production domestically.

Ultimately, lots of things manufactured domestically will still increase in price because of the raw materials they require.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#609

Post by alabastervlog »

SoftTalker wrote: post #536
34679 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been short on work, which means I've been poor. I use my off time to work on side projects that I simply could not afford to complete if I paid what US companies charge for tools, components, and custom PCBs. My ability to innovate is seriously impacted by these tarrifs and there is no alternative that I can afford. I recently created something that people in my industry actually want to buy, but I only ordered…

Yeah pretty funny to see mostly the same people calling for a $20+/hr "minimum wage" on one hand, and bemoaning the tarrifs on the other hand. They will tell you that if you can't pay your employees that much, then you don't have a viable business. But they will turn around and whine about how their cheap Chinese crap purchases are now going to cost what a "viable" domestic producer would have to charge.

I'm a lefty lib and, like lots of us, I've wanted restricted trade with China since we granted them MFN status in the '90s. I think that was a bad idea in the first place.

Neoliberalism is not popular and never was. Donors like it. Workers don't. The only reason either party could stick to it and still win elections, is because both stuck to it. Neither "defected".

Tariffing Canada and Mexico? The EU? Yeah, not so much. And it makes working against Chinese trade far less effective and more-costly.

Claiming these aren't a tax on Americans? That's just a lie. Chaotically switching your message and actual policies day to day? That's not how you foster investment in factories that'll take years to be net-profitable. Working against the CHIPS act? What the literal fuck, that's exactly the kind of thing you [edit: the "you" here is the administration and their boosters, not necessarily "you", the poster] claim to want! That was a really good idea!

So, I agree with a tiny amount of the overall policy, while finding its implementation incompetent, and the other parts to work so strongly against the effects of the part-I-like that I find desirable, that I doubt my motivations for wanting to reduce trade with developing authoritarian states and the administration's are even the same.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#610

Post by Kevcmk »

ldoughty wrote: post #556
ronbenton wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of them made out of balsa wood yet have 10,000 5-star reviews. It’s a joke

> I was very pleased with my "[brand name, if applicable] toilet seat, (2-pack), premium pure white, toolless installation", that I purchased for my family. Would definitely recommend it to friends and family. It arrived promptly and was in perfect condition. You exceeded your current quota please check your plan and billing details. The above is similar to recent reviews I've seen. It's infuriating that there is a r…

https://www.fakespot.com/
Post reply on HN