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The Amazon tax

seths.blog

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Re: The Amazon tax

#302
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has that actually happened in retail stores? All I can find on the topic is about online purchases (or ordering/paying online and picking it up at the store). To do this in brick-and-mortar, you'd have to use remotely programmable price tags and detect who is looking at what, which seems doable, but then you still run into all kinds of tough questions with no good answers. If I happen to see the price tag change from…

"Please scan this item with our app to see YOUR price" -ftfy

Somehow this doesn't scare me at all. Fast food restaurants have been doing this for like 8 years. Almost any order you could make normally, you could get a buck or two off of it if you order through their incredibly sluggish, bloated cross-platform-framework "app" and redeem a "deal." And they tell you this with giant ads.

The function is to get incremental sales (and hopefully establish a pattern of repeat business) by discounting selectively to people who might not buy at all otherwise.

If you're thinking "But they should give that discount to everybody!" that's not a thing. There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.

My grocery store already sends me individualized paper coupons every month.

All of this is promotions. It's all just trying to get some incremental sales, and hoping that if you get an offer for free hot dog buns you'll also buy the hotdogs.

Re: The Amazon tax

#303
post #208

> The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“ I think it would be interesting to see legal action here. I’m not a lawyer, but I feel like there should be at least three ways to go after this: 1. Trademark infringement. If Amazon is using someone’s search that is clearly searching for a specific product, possibly trademarked, it seems inappropriate for them to serve up an…

Burnt myself on this in Google Maps just this week. I had an appointment in my calendar with the location set to "Dr Firstname Lastname, 123 Main St, 12345". I clicked through it into Google Maps and since it had the full address specified I just trusted it. Well, it turned out that the first result was actually an ad for a competing doctor 20 minutes in the wrong direction. To Google's credit, they did drop the "Don…

This is egregious. I would be livid if I drove 20 minutes to an ad buyer's location instead of the actual address, after putting in the actual address to google maps. This is completely the opposite of what a map should be doing for you.

If you can, use Apple maps for now, although Apple has proudly proclaimed that they will be serving ads in maps soon. I also refuse to use the maps.app.goo.gl short links that google maps always wants to send. They will trap you in the compromised google search ecosystem. Insist on using raw addresses. I will paste in the raw address every time someone in a group chat sends a goo.gl link.

Re: The Amazon tax

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who notices a lot of things, I was talking recently with someone who notices almost nothing. When I spoke about my desire to seek out the truth, they simply replied, "I just want to live a happy life." There’s a perception that those who seek knowledge and truth are somehow less happy. Ignorance, and the willingness to take the path of least resistance, can be seen as an advantage for those who would rathe…

Except that this holds true for everything. For example, I only just today found out about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8yo7_Inikg&t=1157s , ie, Oracle's apparent complicity in genocide. Now that I know this, I now have to rethink things: what am I using that depends on Oracle that I need to migrate away from? This wasn't something I was concerned about just 24 hours ago. This is not to say it's not a valid…

You’re aware IBM was not just complicit but essentially made the Holocaust possible with their counting machines? Had technicians permanently staffed in the fucking camps? The the numbers on people’s arms corresponded to IBM punch cards?

Are you aware of the world you live in?

Re: The Amazon tax

#306

This has been true for years on Amazon and is true for most big services now. Over time the concept of search has mutated from 'locate the exact item I'm looking for' to 'show me a list of semantic search results'. Somehow nobody noticed. Oh and of course those are not random results - you can literally feel how the platform is trying to nudge you into buying what IT wants, not what you wanted. The search is just pur…

Yesterday I tried to buy a light bulb for my kitchen hood on Amazon. I searched for 130V 40W light bulb. I ended up buying a 120V one because I gave up trying to find the one I wanted. I think I'll run over to the hardware store next time.

Re: The Amazon tax

#308
post #171

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 convenie…

It's confusing to me that amazon is in the ads business at all though. They're a retail service, not an ad business and it seems that all the ad business does is burn goodwill. They do have goodwill to burn, but it cheapens the entire experience.

How is it confusing? Most brick and mortar stores show ads for specific products. Online platforms other than Amazon do it too.

The only thing is that Amazon is more diversified than other retailers, in particular, they have AWS, essentially selling the platform that runs their website to third parties. It makes sense for them to offer sell their ad service to third parties too.

Re: The Amazon tax

#309

I'm in the UK, and I've found that pretty much anything I can get on Amazon I can also get at John Lewis. It's probably more expensive - I'm in the lucky situation that I'm not particularly price-sensitive - but I much prefer the feeling of buying from JL. Very occasionally I'll buy something from Amazon like photo paper or some small gizmo that's difficult to find elsewhere. The one kind of physical shop I really mi…

> The one kind of physical shop I really miss is the kind of place where you can buy one screw, nail or picture hook etc.

So much nostalgia for these shops. A man with a posh, sparkling clean apron knowing exactly what you need or mean. In and out in under a minute or two having parted with just 30p

Screwfix are actually pretty close in terms of service. Their staff are pretty patient with people and quite helpful. They mostly only sell packs of things though (and wow fixings got expensive... anyway. And it's ironic that the "trades" brand of the group that owns B&Q has better customer service than B&Q...)

Re: The Amazon tax

#310

lots of people here defending amazon blindly seem to be unaware of the full picture of how amazon ads works in the context of the marketplace. the point is that, if airfryer B is rival of A, and B buys ads (to let amazon show B ahead of A even if they searched for A), and A doesn't buy ads, then if B resorts to marketing to lower the quality just enough to compete, then all the quality focus of A will not end up incr…

I'm sure that's very annoying for A Inc. It's probably more annoying than the slotting fee they paid Target, or the wholesale discount Walmart demanded, because "we only have room on the shelf for 3 brands" feels like more of a real constraint than "only 3 brands can be the top 3 search results".

Is it worse for me as a consumer? I'm not convinced.

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