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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#591

Post by stack_framer »

stingraycharles wrote: post #518
stack_framer wrote: post #513

"...the maker of the best air fryer now has to bid on ads as well, if only to protect the sales they were entitled to in the first place." No company is "entitled" to any sales.

The point is that, because of their product’s merits, they would organically be the top ranked search result. But due to advertising, they have lost that spot and now either must give up sales or also advertise.

I understand the point. I simply argue that it's an ill-conceived point, based on various definitions of the word "entitled":

1. qualified for by right according to law

2. having a right to certain benefits or privileges

3. having a right or legitimate claim to something

No company is qualified for sales according to law, or has a right to sales, or has a legitimate claim on sales. Sales must be earned by besting the competition.

No company is "entitled" to any sales.

Re: The Amazon tax

#592

Post by asr »

amluto wrote: 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…

These are creative, but you haven’t thought them through. Do you really want brands to own trademarks on their keywords? So that when, to pick a random example, you search the internet for “1-800 Contacts,” nobody else is allowed to show an ad that says “Hey Amluto! We sell the same thing cheaper!”[1]

2 is just being bad at business. Which is why I’m skeptical it happens.

3, I hate to break it to you, basically happens in every major store you walk into in America. Google “slotting fees.” If you think customers want an alternative, apply to YC!

[1] The FTC (on your behalf) sued 1-800 contacts for trying this. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2016/08/...

Re: The Amazon tax

#593

Post by autoexec »

Retric wrote: post #571
inigyou wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they know that. Cycling enshittification on and off seems to make more money overall than not enshittifying, even though it can make less during the downcycle.

Burning reputation looks great on quarterly reports until the death spiral begins. There’s a great number of products that I used to like that have been replaced and that’s fine as a consumer but stock holders are generally better off when the stock is still valuable in 10 years vs a slightly higher dividend today.

Why worry about how a stock will look in a decade when you can buy and sell in microseconds based on AI, tweets, and vibes. Screwing over users makes people money today. Long before the consequences kick in investors can jump ship to the next corporation victimizing their userbase. Google's probably too big to fail at this point though. If they push away users and the AI bubble bursts taxpayers will be footing the bill.

Re: The Amazon tax

#594

Post by jamesfinlayson »

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…

> There are no '0 search results' anywhere.. each search yields thousands of results.

Urgh... kills me.

I have some ebay alerts for items for one of my hobbies (nothing at all to do with cars). Sometimes if ebay has nothing that matches my alert, I still get an email with spare car parts that I can buy.

And today I was looking for specific brand of wine for a friend on a bottle shop's website. I got 108 results, none of which were for the brand I was searching for, many of which weren't even wine either.

Re: The Amazon tax

#595

Post by asr »

nashashmi wrote: post #536
xyzelement wrote: post #512

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…

That’s pay to spam. Letting advertisers determine relevance of their product to a keyword is not exactly a user enhancing experience. When searching for rav4, i give you the ad for taylor swift concert, obviously understanding you can pay for it. This is spamming. “Relevant” ads should be determined by content producers

Would you, while shopping for a car, decide to buy very expensive concert tickets? Neither would I. So this campaign would have very low CTR and would perform poorly.

It would only perform well if you identified some actual source of latent demand. For example, maybe many people searching for Taylor Swift concert tickets would actually be happy with movie tickets to see a simulcast. At which point, you are providing real information to some searchers.

We can debate and disagree about whether this is something you want in your search results, but it’s not spam. Spam exists because it doesn’t have to compete in an auction.

Re: The Amazon tax

#596

Post by AuthAuth »

apparent wrote: post #189

Imagine there's a best-selling toaster. Amazon can recommend it and many people will be happy buying it. Then, one day a new toaster comes out, and it might be even better than the old best-seller. How would it get sufficient traction to be recommended by the algorithm? To send a strong enough signal, it would probably need a level of sales that could only be achieved with some level of advertising. Separately, I'd n…

Same way youtube gets people to view new videos. By showing a few people the video and if they like it then show it to more people. Obviously for something as expensive as a product launch you'd weight it a bit more towards the new product than a youtube video but still.

Re: The Amazon tax

#597

Post by inigyou »

chrismartin wrote: post #338
laurencerowe wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

Yes, but that isn't a thing that is actually manufactured, due to the lightbulb cartel. And if it was manufactured, they'd label it as 120V, long-lasting, because no country uses 130V power.

You can't just will arbitrary part specifications into existence. You can't declare that you need a 67.53 ohm resistor and then search for that. They only make certain values.

Re: The Amazon tax

#598

Post by inigyou »

wat10000 wrote: post #352
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…

Amazon and a lot of other big companies feel like the corporate embodiment of the "This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers" line from Clerks . We are not valued customers whose business forms the foundation of their success. We are obstacles that sit between them and the money in our bank accounts. They'd prefer to cut us out of the equation entirely, but failing that, they will do whatever it…

Google will just delete all data of a 200 billion dollar pension fund without blinking. This did happen, and somehow it still has customers.

Re: The Amazon tax

#599

Post by inigyou »

citizenpaul wrote: post #413
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…

To me its a bigger problem. The concept of Brand was highly diminished during the manufacturing outsource phase to cheap countries. You could pay $10 for the brand name of a simple product or get the 100% equivalent for $1 from a Chinese Knock off. So people felt ripped off and abandoned brands. (reasonable since the brands were keeping prices high artificially) However that has lead to a massive drop off in quality…

Market for lemons, it's called. When it's impossible for the buyer to know the quality before buying, the buyer has no choice but to price the item as if it's always low quality. Otherwise scammers will just sell low quality items at high quality prices and it'll work. But if the buyer is only paying low quality prices, high quality products can only be sold at a loss, and only low-quality products remain in production because they can make a profit.

Re: The Amazon tax

#600

Post by dybber »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #590

I see the exact same thing on Play Store, and I think Google is outright complicit in fraud. The top result when you search for an app, even if by exact name, is always, literally 100% of the time, not the app you are looking for, but some other ad-infested knockoff spyware shit whose developer paid Google to be placed before the real thing.

Same on iOS App Store. Search for “pocket cast” and you see “Pocket FM”. Search for “notion” and you will see “Notix: AI note taker”.
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