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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#421

Post by aeturnum »

its_ethan wrote: post #418
aeturnum wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. I think deficient or faulty products exist and amazon often sells them. It is not at all assuming that everyone should buy one product - simply that there are psudo-scam products that would be risky for anyone to buy. Like, are you suggesting that when someone tries to buy a brand-name product and receives a counterfeit knockoff instead, that some proportion of those customers prefer to pay…

> I think deficient or faulty products exist and amazon often sells them. So nothing I said disagrees with this. I agree that "pseudo-scam" products and counterfeits exist on Amazon, but if something is risky/dangerous for someone to buy, Amazon is at least partially liable for this - I got a product recall from Amazon for a water kettle (that Amazon doesn't make) that had some defect that could lead to scalding. Whi…

Gotcha - then I think you are misreading my 2nd post - directing consumers away from psudo-scam products is "reversing" the understanding. Not assuming everyone wants one perfect product, but realizing that almost everyone wants to avoid known bad products. A bare bones $100 air fryer is good value.

> I really don't know where you think I implied that

When you said "What you perceive to be "good value" might be "overpaying for useless features" to someone else." you implied that there was no knowable standard for good value. I articulated that idea to an absurd degree in suggesting that you were saying some people would be happy to be scammed - which might be true if good value is impossible to understand objectively.

Re: The Amazon tax

#422

Post by BloondAndDoom »

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’m trying to get rid of Amazon but honestly it’s very hard. All vendor websites are shit, high friction, high bugs. Vendors consistently delivers significantly slower (like 2-3 weeks sometimes)

There is no single website that offers similar solution where my payment is saved and I can just buy and forget.

Only thing I’ve successfully replaced is grocery shopping.

Re: The Amazon tax

#423

Post by its_ethan »

dasil003 wrote: post #417
its_ethan wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nuance isn't relevant here because I've already assumed what they're doing is strictly bad" is what I'm haering. Engaging with the nuance means engaging with the fact that rent-seeking can only exist where value (real or perceived) actually exists. Amazon is only able to sell these ads because sellers get value out of them through increasing sales using the infrastructure that Amazon built. The fact that they capita…

You're right that I jumped to a conclusion, and it's possible I'm wrong. One thing that is structurally certain though: Amazon and other major corporations have almost unlimited time and direct incentives to find reasons to justify this point of view, while the people whose interests are being potentially being harmed (all Amazon customers) don't have much concentrated resources or focused, actionable incentives at t…

I appreciate your response and perspective, and I apologize that my reply had been more snarky than it needed to be.

I'm not here just to defend Amazon, it has it's issues, but it has also provided a lot of value to it's customers, all things considered (building out the largest most efficient supply/distribution chain ever, increasing convenience, reducing cost, and giving access to wide range of product choices). I just think it's important to take full stock of what the benefits are as well as to understand if harms are actually harms or just assumed harms. Basically, just to understand what the tradeoffs are, and that there's likely something positive to be found. I try to apply this thinking to more than just Amazon- like I said, I'm not here just to defend it.

Thanks again for the levelheaded response, I'll leave this feeling like I understand the point you were making better.

Re: The Amazon tax

#424

Post by TaLiTr »

shimman wrote: post #312
retired wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really baffles me when an American can just walk into a store and buy car parts for their fairly niche model from the 1990s. Meanwhile in Europe I spend many evening on internet forums and Facebook groups doing research trying to find a part that will work with my car, then finding someone willing to sell it and finally using Google Translate getting someone to ship it to my foreign (to them) country. I even had t…

Weird, I rather have more government mandated vacation, public healthcare, and a pension system that doesn't mean I have to work in my 60s but I understand people have different priorities in life. Hopefully you move beyond the consumerist phase as it's probably the lowest rung of the human experience.

What a strange and pretentious comment.

They're not mutually exclusive, two things can be had at the same time.

Re: The Amazon tax

#426

Post by MSFT_Edging »

znort_ wrote: post #349
delegate wrote: post #224

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…

> We're back to pre-google, but it's a lot worse now a lot is worse now, but not shopping. on amazon some very specific items may be hard to find, and the search will throw a lot of crap at you, but you're still free to refine, compare and explore. finding exactly what you need and making an informed purchase has never been easier, and you get next day delivery (most of the time) plus exceptional return/refund policy…

I went to a camera store in-person yesterday for work. We needed a lens for a camera already purchased by our company, and we were able to shoot the shit with a super knowledgeable employee absolutely surrounded by lenses, frames, accessories, etc.

We ended up not purchasing anything due to some unknowns, but when my PM told me we'd just order what we need I told him if the price is remotely the same we should go back to the store a few blocks away because had I not spent 15 minutes chatting I would have wasted hours reading blogs/ads trying to figure out what I needed.

Re: The Amazon tax

#427

Post by phil21 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #377
micromacrofoot wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's the other way around, the shelf prices can be stable and they decide which discounts you can get based on your shopping profile which they built using surveillance

Well,,, OK? If I buy a lot of Scott toilet tissue, I'm happy to get a discount on Scott toilet tissue. Though mostly, the discounts I use are already posted on the shelf, I just need to "clip" an e-coupon in the app to get it. They do send me emails and even postal mails with coupons too, but those all go in the trash.

It's not really a "Well, OK?" situation.

The local supermarket chain near me has more or less done away with normal low prices on the shelves. If you want anything resembling a deal, you get to deal with their shit-tier quality app plus other friction inducting time wasting crap like "clipping" digital coupons. Plus opting in to all the associated tracking the app does in order to use it.

They effective raised prices 10-20% for the entire store and then the only way to get a deal is use the app. This is only currently slight hyperbole - every month it rolls out more and more in this direction.

This way they can tell regulators "we only give discounts in a discriminatory manner! We don't raise prices!" when the time comes.

With any luck a judge will see right through that unmitigated bullshit, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Re: The Amazon tax

#428

Post by dreamcompiler »

It's gotten ridiculous in the last month with behavior I've never seen before. If I want to buy a specific book I type into the search bar. The search bar even helps me complete the entry, and then a page shows with a choice of several books with my chosen book at the top.

Fine. Except now after one second, the whole page changes and then there's only one book on the page and it has nothing to do with the book I actually searched for.

So obviously they know about the book I want because they just showed it to me but then they make it disappear in favor of one I don't want but which I presume is one the publisher paid them to show me.

My workaround is to search on Amazon in a private tab so they don't know who I am. In that case the book I want shows up and I can click on it and get its URL and then paste it into the original Amazon window where I'm already logged in, and I can order it. Except I don't, because I'm so disgusted by this I go directly to the publisher's website and order it there.

This is ridiculous.

Amazon is throwing money on the floor with this behavior and they're probably just begging for a restraint of trade class-action lawsuit.

Re: The Amazon tax

#429

Post by phil21 »

xp84 wrote: post #302
evereverever wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> There's not enough margin in the first place, especially at a supermarket or Walmart, that everyone could just have lower prices on everything.

Strange how this totally worked until a few years ago. I never cut coupons or any other time wasting shenanigans, but was able to stop up on deals on the commonly used shelf-stable items I buy without even needing to signup to a loyalty program.

I understand price segmentation is a thing. But it's gotten pretty exhausting and only increasingly so.

Fast food you can simply opt out of. My health improved due to them shifting all the "deals" to the app, and doubling menu prices. Groceries are a different thing.

Re: The Amazon tax

#430

Post by stillpointlab »

delegate wrote: post #224

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…

The dark pattern I've noticed a few times is the exact match I type into Amazon search doesn't even return the item I entered but 2 or 3 entire pages of alternatives.

I know the item is there because Google returns it, either as a search response or in their "shopping" widget. I can click through Google to Amazon and see the item, sometimes even from the certified seller. But if I enter the exact search term in Amazon's search bar it doesn't show up in their own results.

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