The Amazon tax • Hacker News Board

Re: The Amazon tax

#471

Post by Tangurena2 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:05 PM UTC

massysett wrote: post #274

nikole9696 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's truly awful if you're looking for something specific. I tend to find things by finding something I don't want then clicking through 16 pages of "related to this item" ad nauseum. I find myself more often using ChatGPT to find things now because their search is sooo bad. Like, if I want petite clothes, I do not want clothes that are not petite, folks. Why is this hard?

I’m surprised that anyone would love Amazon so much that they resort to using third-party search so they can continue buying from Amazon. Rather than just shopping elsewhere! There are many product categories where I know that shopping on Amazon will be a miserable experience riddled with crap goods and useless search, so I go elsewhere. Never even occurred to me to use an LLM to make up for Amazon’s own deliberate d…

Amazon purchased all of the companies/sites that handled the used book market. You cannot escape the clutches of Amazon if you're a book nerd like me.

Re: The Amazon tax

#472

Post by einpoklum » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:10 PM UTC

Large enough companies always set up rent mechanisms.

> Amazon is stealing from the customers they said they were here to serve.

The stealing is, of course, much more fundamental than the search tax.

I am reminded of the saying by 19th-century French social thinker Proudhon, who said: "La propriete? C'est le vol!" ("Property? Why, that's theft!") - he was describing interactions which, at that time, it was conceivably possible to manage collectively for the public benefit - taken over by individuals, institutions and mechanisms economically benefits a small few to the detriment of the majority (farmers and laborers). The Amazon product search example is different, but then, also not so different. I mean, it's just search - and the blog post author knows it could just be implemented reasonably so that people who want to find his book find his book. Then suddenly, Amazon put a fence around that field and demands you pay a part of your annual yield for it to allow you to farm that field, and not drive you off by force. And that metaphor is probably quite clear to you even though there are no farmers, fields or fences in the blog post.

Amazon's not stealing that money from its stockholders, which is who

Re: The Amazon tax

#473

Post by coredog64 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #325

JKCalhoun wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eBay is my first go-to.

publicsurplus.com has everything a person might need and you are supporting local government. You can find yourself a nice laptop for cheap. "It's got a cop CPU, an i5 10th gen. It's got cop RAM, cop SSD, cop 12v power input."

Fix the cigarette lighter

Re: The Amazon tax

#474

Post by boznz » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #455

>If you’re searching for an air fryer, Amazon already knows quite a bit. They know the best-reviewed, least-returned, best-priced model. 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). What if I made a new air fryer that hasn't received a lot of reviews and costs a little more because of…

> How would I break through, if not ads?

You wouldn't, your product would languish in obscurity and unless the searcher knew the exact actual product name forever be on page 200 of the search results (As a Sci-Fi book author I found this out the hard way). Influencers and having followers can also help your product break through, but that's about it. Self promotion of your product is usually actively discouraged or banned by many forums.

Re: The Amazon tax

#475

Post by anarticle » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:19 PM UTC

Turns out we ended up with paid search, but paid for by who? :D

Seems bad.

Re: The Amazon tax

#476

Post by topspin » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

Brendinooo wrote: post #455

>If you’re searching for an air fryer, Amazon already knows quite a bit. They know the best-reviewed, least-returned, best-priced model. 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). What if I made a new air fryer that hasn't received a lot of reviews and costs a little more because of…

> How would I break through, if not ads?

Make YouTube videos. Food porn is a thing, and some subset of that crowd will want to watch you fry stuff with your "pro" fryer.

Re: The Amazon tax

#477

Post by goodrubyist » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:25 PM UTC

This assumes that people only (or at least) mostly depend on Amazon's search results' ordering to decide which products to buy. This is not true, at least not for everyone. I, e.g., visit review websites like Wirecutter to decide. Something tells me I'm not the only one.

Re: The Amazon tax

#478

Post by asah » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:34 PM UTC

Google has entered the chat, and also eBay and every aggregator site on the web.

Re: The Amazon tax

#479

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

topspin wrote: post #476

Brendinooo wrote: post #455

>If you’re searching for an air fryer, Amazon already knows quite a bit. They know the best-reviewed, least-returned, best-priced model. 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). What if I made a new air fryer that hasn't received a lot of reviews and costs a little more because of…

> How would I break through, if not ads? Make YouTube videos. Food porn is a thing, and some subset of that crowd will want to watch you fry stuff with your "pro" fryer.

This is up there with talk to your neighbors and put flyers on windshields.

It is a bandaid for a dysfunctional market with high transaction costs of trust(reputation) and triangulation(discovery).

Amazon only excells at low transfer cost - no negotiation and cheap delivery

Re: The Amazon tax

#480

Post by topaz0 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #419

butvacuum wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't scare you that $store can decide to double their lrice because they detected a brand new phone in your pocket? This isn't even a little hypothetical- bluetooth had to anonomyze the MAC address to stop this, and it still fails sometimes.

If a store does this, they will eventually be caught and lose business

Lol