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The Amazon tax

seths.blog

551–560 of 731 posts

Re: The Amazon tax

#551
if your highest performing ad is against searches for literally the title of your book, isn't that a signal that you don't need to buy ads? people are searching for your book. they will buy it whether you advertise or not. so why by the ad?

this is framed as amazon doing something wrong, but it sounds like what's actually happening is that his marketer is wasting money. of course amazon is going to accept money if you give it to them for the things they're already doing for free. why shouldn't they?

Re: The Amazon tax

#552

I don't love (but use...) Amazon but I think if done properly, ads can be relevant even when searching for a specific thing. Let's use a Google Example: I search for Toyota RAV4 and get an ad for Mazda cx-50. Obviously Toyota hates that but as a consumer it has a chance of making me aware of something I didn't know but would want to know, especially as a part of a purchase decision. That's why Mazda pays for that ad…

No. If I search "Toyota RAV4" what I mean is Toyota RAV4. If I meant Mazda CX-50 I would have typed "Mazda CX-50." If I wanted information about various mid-size SUVs, rather than one in particular, I'd have searched "midsize SUVs." The number of times I have searched something, got back something I did not ask for, and found that helpful, rounds down to zero. It's actively destructive to the platforms that allow thi…

Are you saying that because it’s across company boundaries? Or would you be similarly upset if one result was for a Toyota Highlander? Or for a Toyota RAV4 XSE but not the LE trim

I gotta say, I think you’re in the minority. I suspect most folks appreciate the cross shopping suggestion

Re: The Amazon tax

#553

I don't love (but use...) Amazon but I think if done properly, ads can be relevant even when searching for a specific thing. Let's use a Google Example: I search for Toyota RAV4 and get an ad for Mazda cx-50. Obviously Toyota hates that but as a consumer it has a chance of making me aware of something I didn't know but would want to know, especially as a part of a purchase decision. That's why Mazda pays for that ad…

This is the most baffling comment I think I’ve ever read

Re: The Amazon tax

#554

Amazon is a net-negative overall but I don't think this understanding is correct: > 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). The ads make the search worse. This is only true in extremely simply scenarios. In reality, most of the time individual consumers may prefer something other…

[flagged]

Re: The Amazon tax

#555
post #30

When searching on Amazon I always change sort to Best Sellers. The default is Featured Items which shows ads at the top and throughout results. For some searches that have a small number of real results, the majority of the list will be ads. Sorting by Best Sellers eliminates all ads in the results.

of course, the best seller is usually whoever has spent the most on advertising

Mostly agree with this. Because what the article is saying is that it at least skews the best sellers towards those who spend more on ads.

Re: The Amazon tax

#556

> Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over. There was study not too long ago that showed that 48% of Amazon's employees were paid so little that they were forced to depend on some form of public assistance to meet their basic needs. Not only would an extra 35k a year prevent amazon employees from needing foodstamps and ho…

Force means "coercion or compulsion, especially w the use of threat or violence".

If "not paying someone x dollars" = force, then at this moment, I'm forcing 6 billion people to do something.

Re: The Amazon tax

#557
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 is just how ads work

First, no. You have missed the point of the piece entirely.

Second, even if you were right, is that an argument for it working that way? If this were a blog post about how gangrene sucks, would you be making the same case?

I’m just going to keep doing this like once a month here forever: “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

Re: The Amazon tax

#558
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…

This is terrible behavior and it should be condemned, but I see no reason it should be illegal. There’s no deception in any of this. It’s like going to a store and asking an employee where the Widgets are, and they show you the Doodads instead because they’re more profitable. This is scummy but by no means illegal. The Doodads are labeled as Doodads. The advertisers know where their ads can be shown and under what conditions they’ll be charged for a click. It’s all dickish but it’s not fraud.

Re: The Amazon tax

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Searched for jeans a few days ago. I got about 3.3% each, scattered through several dozen pages, of two American brands; 1.65% each another couple of brands; a smattering of one or two results for another couple of brands; the remaining approximately 90% were the almost exact same jeans (maybe the same), under several names... pages and pages of them. It is almost impossible to shop for clothes on Amazon now. It used…

It’s not just clothes. Unless the item is a very specific name brand thing, I find Amazon nearly useless for discovery. It’s effectively Ali Express with much higher markup and much faster shipping. I suppose there’s a market for that. Unfortunately for them, I’d rather buy cheep Chinese crap from a local retailer where there is still a human buyer in the loop choosing something that’s not the lowest bottom of the ba…

Yeah, the pity is that Amazon almost went this direction. They have a set of filters! They just don’t work. Not only do they clearly not want you to use them (the filters prematurely reset if you do virtually anything), but their coverage is weird and again, they don’t even work. You’d think Amazon themselves would have basic, valid data but they just don’t care.

As an example of how this stacks up, in the app, I filter air fryers to be red. Easy, right? One option, two sponsored, three more options, an autoplay video ad for a non-red one, then another sponsored link, “customers frequently viewed carousel with more sponsored links, one of which is not red, (so this is a full phone screen and a half with zero real results), one more result, two sponsored links, three more results, and then a non-red deep fryer, which is not even an air fryer to begin with. How does a silver deep fryer end up in these results at all?

The shittiness continues. A sponsored link to a toaster oven (not an air fryer either), another sponsored link, a real result, a used air fryer, silicone liners (not air fryers), a carousel of “trending now” including four of five items that are not air fryers either (and a low-rated red air fryer I haven’t seen yet… which makes me think they are outright lying about it being a ‘trending’ item), another carousel with “brands related to your search”, ALSO sponsored, two more results, another near full screen autopay video ad, three sponsored links for air fryer accessories, two real results for more accessories, then two more real red air fryer results, though one is only available used.

I’m exhausted just typing that out. It’s soul-crushing. A good two-thirds of total screen real estate in any given session is just pure ads. And I typed “red air fryer”, so don’t show me a red air fryer silicone liner! That’s not what I asked for. If you must, label it in a carousel that says “matching accessories, that’s both user friendly and appropriate!

Re: The Amazon tax

#560
post #30

When searching on Amazon I always change sort to Best Sellers. The default is Featured Items which shows ads at the top and throughout results. For some searches that have a small number of real results, the majority of the list will be ads. Sorting by Best Sellers eliminates all ads in the results.

Since most things I buy from amazon are commodity type items I need quickly and cheaply, my method has been "Prime Only" + "Sort Lowest First". Add on a score minimum filter if the first results are junk. If you're just looking for something that's all whitelabeled stuff all coming from the same alibaba source, you can just find who's selling the same thing at the cheapest price currently. The prime only label is nee…

Why do you assume they are all the exact same and not that some are using even cheaper ingredients/components?

There’s really no knowing what contaminating or failed spec made that batch super cheap.

It’s a race to the bottom, corners will be cut.

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