Live data from Hacker News

The Amazon tax

seths.blog

331–340 of 731 posts

Re: The Amazon tax

#331
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Oh, I know, but the prices that I get on Amazon are definitely cheaper than what I can get from the real Wholefoods 500 meters away. It's absurdist.

Re: The Amazon tax

#332
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Bellevue so by supporting Amazon I'm supporting a local business. It's hard to imagine replacing most of the things I get from the site with someplace else. (Though it'd be nice to have a Micro Center.) I've even started getting more grocery products as Safeway/QFC/Fred Meyer up their prices, and the Redmond Fred Meyer closed which had the best produce. Etsy is mainly useful to me for the occasional copyrig…

I wonder if people who live in DC think the same about their federal tax dollars, it’s roughly the same flavor of “local”

Just going off the "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" license plates, I'd guess not. Federal tax dollars are spent according to the whims of literally everyone else in the country except them.

Re: The Amazon tax

#333
Same reason why the top ad on Google when you search for a brand is for the brand itself -- "brand bidding" is a thing, and if you don't bid on ads for your own brand, a competitor will. If Google can do it why not Amazon!

I do not understand why sellers accept this practice. I'd assume it would run afoul of some trademark law but the distinct lack of lawsuits indicates that either the legal grounds are shaky... or the sellers themselves find some advantage in it.

Re: The Amazon tax

#334
post #33

Amazon is almost completely unusable for search at this stage. I think perhaps 3/4 of the results are sponsored ads. Three in four. Trying to find a good deal on a product, even if you know precisely what you're looking for, is a real headache of trying to dodge the advertisement minefield.

Even without the ads, Amazon search is abysmal. It seems to ignore half the words you enter. I often resort to using Google or ChatGPT to find items on Amazon which I know are there, but which their search box doesn't surface.

I searched for "cayenne" and accidentally bought the hot pepper product that came up which was not cayenne.

After going mildly buckwild on amazon after 3 years of not ordering a single thing (after a move to the country) I let the free month of prime I was using expire. This, and the counterfeit product I got (and had to spend 45 minutes on the internet and phone to get refunded) was decisive. I'll try again in 5 years.

Re: The Amazon tax

#335
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it is only 25% more, you are NOT getting ripped off. Mere economies of scale and purchasing power yield Amazon more than 25% lower costs. the mom & pop stores you accuse of ripping you off likely have even slimmer margins than Amazon, even at their prices. Yes, all of us who are not wealthy must have an upper limit to what we can support, and maybe 25% is over your limit, but please don't ignorantly accuse them of…

Sounds like the economy of scale option produced better results for consumers :)

Re: The Amazon tax

#336
I respect Seth quite a bit and have been an avid reader for two decades, but this post struck me as odd.

It reads as though he’s just discovering how the digital advertising industry works (and he's a marketer) ... not just Amazon, but also Google etc.

Re: The Amazon tax

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, those moms and pops are ripping us off, living like… well, not like Bezos.

So Bezos has produced a more efficient option and was rewarded for it? I already said I like Amazon, you don’t have to convince me

Re: The Amazon tax

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a difference between a 120V bulb and a 130V bulb? I thought we basically had 110-130V North American voltage and 220-240V Euro and others voltage as the actual voltage you get from the grid varies within a range.

Yes, the 130 volt bulb lasts longer when operated on 120 volts. My family would buy these when I was kid.

Some probably non-LLM explanations:

https://blog.1000bulbs.com/home/why-buy-130-volt-light-bulbs

https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/14349/are-there-any-...

Re: The Amazon tax

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Somehow nobody noticed. I disagree, many many people noticed and we were irked by it, but it's extremely impractical to fight against it.

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…

A lot of knowledge and truth can be quite disappointing. I do think shielding oneself from truths and knowledge probably would make someone more happy. Think about it - do you think you would be more happy knowing the darkest thoughts and actions of those around you? Of those close to you? What if your spouse was having thoughts of leaving you? Would that make you more happy or less happy? I suppose you could say that if you were privy to their thoughts, you might discover that they love you and think about you more than you imagined, so that may be a net benefit, but I think we humans have a tendency to focus on the negative, and so an abundance of information leads us to focus on the negative things within the information, which makes us less happy.

Re: The Amazon tax

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Etsy still welcomes small craft artists and makers and provides a convenient e-commerce portal for them, but yes, it's the discovery that's been ruined. They originally broke through and defined themselves by insisting that vendors only sell original cottage-crafted work, but gave up on that requirement years ago and the sincere low-volume, low-margin crafters can't compete with high-volume, high-margin importers in…

It's a lot like Google search: the good websites are still there but now it's impossible to find them.

Etsy in particular has an incentive to fix this in ways that Google would never
Post reply on HN