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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#111

Post by retired »

audidude wrote: post #81
retired wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is just so convenient for me. They deliver within a day in a package locker next to home. Meanwhile with other platforms it takes up to a week, the delivery timeframe is 08:00 to 21:00, I then have to wait for the delivery person to call me because they can never find my front door. And if I happen to be on the toilet when they ring the package is delivered to a parcel point ten kilometers away. So I have to r…

This was something I would have never understood living in the US until I moved to France 4 months ago. And yeah, as much as I dislike the company, those lockers are clutch.

Package delivery is pretty good when you live in a country with a standardized address system, large homes and where the delivery driver can park in front of your home.

However if you live in a historical city center where your address is the equivalent of “That small door if you go up two stairs behind the old tavern” then package deliveries plain suck. Especially since you don’t have the “village postmen” anymore. You have ten delivery companies and none of them have fixed routes.

Re: The Amazon tax

#112

Post by forestrywat »

billyp-rva wrote: post #68
forestrywat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you put much thought into the article before you carelessly bandied about the phrase "Thoughtless take." You certainly didn't read it in much depth. The author is talking about search ads explicitly and narrowly within a category where Amazon has plenty of signals it could use to steer customers towards the highest satisfaction product. If you make a new better product, advertise everywhere you want. An…

I have to agree with OP, this phrase specifically reveals it isn't a good take: > sales [the best product] were entitled to in the first place Unfortunately, this is not, and has never been, how it works. The best product is never entitled to sales. Marketing, which very much includes advertising, is a massive, massive factor in sales.

So advertising entitles you to sales?

Re: The Amazon tax

#113

Post by pbohun »

An idea I've played around with in the past is to have some sort of law that limits how much revenue a company can make from ads. For example, a law that says "A company cannot make more than 10% of its gross revenue from ads or selling customer data".

This kind of law would wreak havoc for certain companies (and content creators). However, just like prediction markets, ads distort and ruin the very thing they are trying to optimize.

Re: The Amazon tax

#114

Post by teiferer »

> Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over.

As much as I'd like to agree with the article's point and am critical of Amazon etc etc, you lost me here. $35k cash bonus for every employee does not pass the smell test. I'm sure the delivery driver who famously needs to pee into a bottle because they can't afford a toilet break would love such a bonus, but they don't get one.

This makes me doubt everything in the article. Which is really a shame because such articles are necessary. But you need to keep your facts straight, otherwise you are completely disqualifying yourself from any serious discourse. At least for me.

There is enough to criticise with Amazon. Just keep to the things that are true.

Re: The Amazon tax

#115

Post by insane_dreamer »

cancelled our Prime membership a year ago (after nearly 10 years) and went from buying most non-food things on Amazon to occasionally buying small random items. We broke our addiction to 1 or 2-day shipping, and we're just fine.

Re: The Amazon tax

#116

Post by cute_boi »

abixb wrote: post #29

I've slowly shifted all my consumer purchases from Amazon to local shops and other online platforms, including Etsy. I'm now seriously contemplating deleting my Amazon account of 15 years in one whole swoop. The quality degradation is painfully apparent, and the value add of Amazon in my life has been steadily declining for a while. I've also had terrible experiences with AWS, but that's a different story. Amazon's o…

I would love to support mom and pop stores if they don't charge 25% more than amazon. Here, in NY buying from small store means getting ripped off.

Re: The Amazon tax

#117

Post by whall6 »

Is this not the direct result of consumers being too lazy to price match and price discover? Amazon still has the ability to sort price: low to high. You also still have the ability to ask your friends and family what air fryer they purchased. If the average consumer just implicitly trusts Amazon such that they buy whatever shows up first, that’s not Amazon’s fault, that’s the consumer’s fault.

I am worried that we have become so bubble wrapped that even our shopping will need to be done by regulators.

Re: The Amazon tax

#118

Post by BeetleB »

I'm having trouble understanding how this differs from traditional ads - even pre-Internet...? Didn't manufacturers pay to get premium shelf space in a store?

Re: The Amazon tax

#119

Post by Almondsetat »

astonex wrote: post #79
bko wrote: post #71

> The only purpose of the ads is to get you to pick an air fryer that isn’t that one (or for the best air fryer, to keep you on track to buy the one you wanted in the first place). The ads make the search worse. "The best" is not a static product. If Amazon had no way for vendors to showcase their product, the best would be a stale product that accumulated decades of reviews. Maybe it's still the best , maybe not. Bu…

Isn't that what independent reviews are generally useful for? To try all the options and share feedback for someone to make their own choice.

For every kind of product one might need to buy?

Re: The Amazon tax

#120

Post by BeetleB »

teiferer wrote: post #114

> Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over. As much as I'd like to agree with the article's point and am critical of Amazon etc etc, you lost me here. $35k cash bonus for every employee does not pass the smell test. I'm sure the delivery driver who famously needs to pee into a bottle because they can't afford a toilet bre…

He's not saying they get the $35K bonus.
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