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The Amazon tax

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Re: The Amazon tax

#711

Post by -0_0- »

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…

Australia's competition watchdog sued Google over this about 10 years ago, and lost the case on appeal. Google's winning argument was that it was the ad buyers that were responsible for breaking the law, not Google who were just acting as a conduit.

I'm not really convinced these kinds of "we're just the platform" arguments stack up that well anymore when we see the harm these kinds of unregulated platforms have done to society. Unfortunately though the precedent is already set, so it will be fairly had to backtrack.

Re: The Amazon tax

#712

Post by [deleted] »

bubblegumcrisis wrote: post #698
gyulai wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forget a third option. A monopolist doing the right thing from their good heart? Not gonna work. Legislators micromanaging every last aspect of every last thing through regulations? Not gonna work. Legislators squashing monopolies and making rules to keep competition intact and put meaningful choice into consumers' hands: Might work.

Huh.. That is an interesting idea. I like it. You have a company, it is worth below X dollars? You do what you want. Above X dollars, now you get government minder for every decision. All of the "buying to shutdown competitors"- not possible - you don't have enough cash! Well I mean, it would be possible, but it would also carry huge risk. (As you don't have infinite cash reserves) Keep your companies small and agile…

[deleted]

Re: The Amazon tax

#713

Post by poulpy123 »

eh_why_not wrote: post #415
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…

> Someone should file the multi-hundred-billion-dollar class actions Incidentally, last week Amazon changed their TOS [0] and now all disputes with them are to be resolved via Arbitration; class action waiver when you use their services, etc. [0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/amazon-reinstates-b...

How is it even legal ?

Re: The Amazon tax

#714

Post by tapland »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #706
tdeck wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Google needs to prevent sideloading for your own good, despite the fact that they can't / won't even keep this out of the Play store.

I mean. The fact that GP couldn't find it again is an indication that they did keep it out, or at least kick it out (and possibly uninstalled it from any users that got scammed by that ad). Google's anti-sideloading stance is scummy for a lot of reasons, but this in particular is a bad example.

No, I couldn't find it a few seconds later when I realized what I saw. It felt like a case of alt-code naming to prevent showing up in search, unless being presented in the top ad spot.

Re: The Amazon tax

#715

Post by HappMacDonald »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #658

I agree with the conclusions of the article, and I am no fan of Amazon or search ads on any product. However, I would like to play devil's advocate for a moment to brainstorm another issue. Let's say I build a product that is better than others in the market. We all agree that competition is good becuase it leads to better products and lower prices. However, the algorithm favors entrenched players. A product that has…

> Let's say I build a product that is better than others in the market.

This sounds like the same song as Evolution: the winner is not "the best", the winner is "good enough" and dethroning "good enough" with "better" absolutely requires a sufficiently strong advantage, not just any incremental advantage.

If the incumbent is not "good enough", then they won't get great reviews and whoever does try them will be looking for an alternative right away, so you have your foot in the door on either front.

If the incumbent is good enough, then you just cannot market "being very slightly better": you target a demand that is not already sated. You could be cheaper.. by a large enough delta and without sufficient loss in quality to drive away demand, or you could begin by targeting whatever portion of the market is not satisfied by the incumbent for whatever reason.

Marketing is hard (and harder still when one is aiming to be ethical and a good steward of the market instead of constantly scamming and cheating and ruining everyone's trust), and "paying to force your message in front of unsolicited eyeballs" is not the only game in town.

Re: The Amazon tax

#716

Post by ryukoposting »

xyzelement wrote: post #699
ryukoposting wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that this is true for you and probably even for me. But think about normal human conversation - when a friend tells me they are going to buy a rav-4 that weekend,I am 100% going to tell that then I had a rental CX-50 last week and would recommend they take a look at it. In other words: putting a new concept on someone's radar that they hadn't thought about but is relevant to them is hugely valuable. Think abo…

> when a friend tells

Pause. Amazon is not my friend. Neither is Google, or Netflix, or Temu, or any other website or service.

When I ask an e-commerce website for something, I'm not looking for normal human conversation. I'm looking for a product.

More generally, when I'm asking a computer for something, I'm still not looking to have a conversation. I'm looking for results. Quaint, I know.

If I want Amazon to "put new ideas on my radar" I'll ask for that explicitly. Spoiler alert: I won't. It's a website where you buy things, not a goddamn mood board.

Re: The Amazon tax

#717

Post by marginalx »

zinekeller wrote: post #589
marginalx wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one does it like Amazon, it requires users to walk through the sponsored ads before they can see organic search results, almost no other platform does this online. Walmart has a single strip of sponsored results at top, immediately leading to organic results, others like Target, HomeDepot do not mix in sponsored results with search results. B&M is different, Ads are there, but you aren't forced to look at them lik…

> B&M is different, Ads are there, but you aren't forced to look at them like Amazon does. Ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, even your physical Walmart store is also selling a lot of shelf space to manufacturers/advertisers (similar to how Amazon sell the first slot, or at this point first 'page'), especially those checkout lines ( https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-grocers-wring-extra-cash-ou... ). That's why your on…

Walmart is not making me move things(ads) out of the way to proceed to checkout, I don't know how much simpler I can get beyond this.

Re: The Amazon tax

#718

Post by tt24 »

toss1 wrote: post #671
tt24 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you take the view of a simpleton, sure, it seems "Better", for now, and depending on your definition of "Better". If it is only price, then sure. But remember, the economies of scale first make things more the same and reduce variety, then enable eliminating competitors from the market, thus enabling enshittification at scale (not possible when there are readily available competitors and switching is easy). For pr…

> But remember, the economies of scale first make things more the same and reduce variety, then enable eliminating competitors from the market, thus enabling enshittification at scale

Source?

Re: The Amazon tax

#719

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

Yeah, even if I search "Genshin impact". I'm going to get the sponsored search result for Genshin impact before the every next entry... Which is Genshin impact. Any other related game? Genshin impact before the actual title.

That a big part of why discovery on the google/App store is just a plutocracy at this point. Mobile is free (as in beer) but a huge money sink advertising the game.

Re: The Amazon tax

#720

Post by johnnyanmac »

gyulai wrote: post #665
Frieren wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No regulations -> fraud and scams Expecting that the rich will do the right thing out of their good hearts is not just naive but actively damaging for society.

You forget a third option. A monopolist doing the right thing from their good heart? Not gonna work. Legislators micromanaging every last aspect of every last thing through regulations? Not gonna work. Legislators squashing monopolies and making rules to keep competition intact and put meaningful choice into consumers' hands: Might work.

All they do is convince people who think the 2nd doesn't work that the 3rd is just the 2nd with extra steps. Problem solved, rich get richer.

We need some of the 2nd. You can't micromanage as a legislator unless that's your entire domain, and I don't think anyone on congress right now is laser focused on software nor even big tech (where we 100% should have a committee by now). But at the very least some basic consumer protections would be nice.

Just to show how nakedly corrupt it is; we recently had a good law about subscription cancellations being easier. And I believe by now that's already repealed as it goes through predictable litigation. It's such a nakedly anti-consumer move, but we're so downtrodden that it barely registered as a blip.

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