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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#171

Post by GuB-42 »

It doesn't have to do with Amazon. It is just how ads work.

Of course when you buy a product that is heavily advertised you know that you are paying for it, Amazon or not. That's why, when I see an ad campaign for a product I may want, it is a signal for me to look elsewhere. Some competitor may use what would be ad budget towards offering lower prices or better quality.

As for Amazon, it is not cheap! It is convenient, fast delivery, easy returns and all that. But if you forego that convenience, there is usually a cheaper option: local shops, Chinese platforms, direct sales, etc...

Re: The Amazon tax

#172

Post by sib »

I'm sorry, but how does a business writer lead an article with garbage like this:

Amazon makes nearly a billion dollars in profit from search ads. Every week. Each week, they sell merchants and publishers enough search-distorting ads to capture a billion dollars in revenue.

Is it revenue or profit? They are not the same thing.

Re: The Amazon tax

#173

Post by ulfw »

ramijames wrote: post #169
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…

Mostly I'm buying Amazon groceries because here in Boston if you don't have a car and access to Costco, wow are your local shops over-priced. Wholefoods, Star Market, and Trader Joes are all at least 25% more expensive.

Who do you think Wholefoods belongs to?

Re: The Amazon tax

#174

Post by carimura »

My current strategy is to skip ads and skip any name that is just a jumble of letters. But the garbage producers are getting so good with AI they can create entire websites with US addresses and pictures of buildings and employees and none of it is real.

Re: The Amazon tax

#175

Post by fourside »

abeppu wrote: post #100
siliconc0w wrote: post #61

I'm hoping AI will disintermediate most retail and we'll finally get an aggregator that isn't going to add a tax on both sides of the market. "Buy me the best Air Fryer" -> finds the best given my preferences and constraints and directly purchases it from the cheapest distributor

Why do you expect an AI developed in the same economic system would optimize for your preferences rather than their revenue? I think this only works if people can run, fine-tune and update their own models -- otherwise the giant AI vendors have every incentive to nudge you towards whichever retailer is bidding most on your Sponsored Responses, right? I think the only difference will be that instead of advertising to…

Yeah I truly do not understand some people’s logic. Like the ones talking about some post scarcity world where universal income will offset AI related job loss. So the people in power, the ones who have constantly tried to cut back government spending, are now going to flip and support universal income? Right.

Re: The Amazon tax

#176

Post by preg_match »

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…

The best part about not using Amazon is I get to get my stuff quicker, and I can see/feel it. Buying clothes off Amazon is basically the worst thing ever, for instance.

One day shipping is fast, but I can run to the store in 15 minutes. Can't beat that.

Re: The Amazon tax

#177

Post by rappatic »

badgersnake wrote: post #109
efavdb wrote: post #88

Counterpoint: Amazon among the most favorable institutions in the US https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/HHP...

38% of people also think opposing fascism is very unfavourable according to that. Assuming it's real, I'm not going to put much faith in the opinions of the American public.

> Assuming it's real, I'm not going to put much faith in the opinions of the American public.

You’re talking about Amazon’s actual customers here. Is Amazon supposed to ignore the opinion of their customers for the opinion of some commenter on HN?

Re: The Amazon tax

#178

Post by tcfhgj »

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…

did that already years ago :)

Re: The Amazon tax

#179

Post by radicality »

geerlingguy wrote: post #27

It's amazing how poor on-site search has gotten, while at the same time the capability to have better results and more relevancy has gone way up. I normally use Google and/or DuckDuckGo to search YouTube and Amazon, because if I'm looking for a specific video/product, that one will be 3-4 pages in (maybe not even shown). Brand name products are buried 3+ pages deep on Amazon, while the first 2-3 pages are always drop…

Aliexpress is also surprisingly impossible to search, you gotta use external search engines, I guess it increases there sales :S More than half the time for me on AliExpress a very specific search term will just return completely unrelated things which are either trending or related to my past purchases.

Re: The Amazon tax

#180

Post by jondea »

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…

But Etsy also has these ads, and I find them even harder to identify than on Amazon
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