Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

PriceZombie is shutting down

pricezombie.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 219 posts

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#131

Post by [deleted] »

designtofly wrote: post #124
meritt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CamelCamelCamel has not went anywhere. But they also don't serve affiliate links as far as I can tell, so their revenue model (if they have one) is not dependent on an affiliate relationship.

CCC does serve affiliate links. If you go to any product page on CCC and click the "Buy" button, you'll end up at Amazon and the URL will have the "tag=camelproducts-20" for their affiliate code in the URL. I'm sure every Amazon-bound link on their website or browser plug-in will do the same.

[deleted]

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#132

Post by 794CD01 »

elbigbad wrote: post #84
josho wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> building a business model around the availability of a third party is a recipe for failure. Rather, I think it's that a business model that is not complimentary to the third party is the problem. E.g. Amazon doesn't want historical price tracking for as it could lead to folks discovering price manipulations and a decrease in margins. So, that's the issue--the business was not a compliment. Let's imagine a startup t…

Which is a great strategy, until the business releases something that duplicates your functionality and cancels your access.

If your product was well made and fairly priced, they would never need to.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#133

Post by Dylan16807 »

dave2000 wrote: post #113
Domenic_S wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem here is that the power company can't unilaterally decide you don't get power anymore and turn it off without warning. Your shipping carrier can't suddenly decide they don't serve you anymore, and by the way we're keeping all the packages you have en route. But Amazon can. They also pay a few months in arrears, so one day you may wake up to a form email that says essentially, "adios, and I'm keeping th…

"But Amazon can..... In fairness, I believe all affiliate programs are like that." My point is that most other companies are like that, and the difference is just the extent to which these parasitical "internet businesses" are coupled to their host. They're not `keeping the money`, they're just not paying you stuff that's not covered by the contract, TOS etc. It's not `without warning` by the same token; unless the w…

Except in the many many cases where companies are shut down despite not violating the TOS.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#134

Post by patio11 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #129
patio11 wrote: post #23

Our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely, leaving us wondering if anyone was listening I was once in a room with Dave McClure and a ~50ish companies he had funded. He announced that he was taking a tour of partnership teams at two members of AppAmaGooBookSoft and asked for who wanted to come with.…

I'm confused. Was the mention of a tour just something that reminded him to give that advice, and it was completely unrelated to the rant? Was he assuming that anyone that wanted to go on the tour was in that situation, an assumption that makes very little sense?

In a room where he expected ~40 participants for the tour he had ~6 hands raised, which caused the core dump.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#135

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mindslight wrote: post #72
pavel_lishin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a bit like complaining to the police officer who pulled you over that other people were speeding, too?

Besides likely being less effective than saving such arguments for the magistrate, what exactly is wrong with that? It's a standard avenue of contesting a speeding ticket.

Because you're admitting that you were speeding. If you claim ignorance ("Sorry, I was too focused on traffic to glance at the speedometer"), you at least have a chance (depending on the officer's mood) of getting away with a warning.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#136

Post by meritt »

djsumdog wrote: post #62
ValentineC wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices How is Amazon fine with CamelCamelCamel [1] then? It seems like they make money off Amazon affiliate links too. [1] http://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/how-our-price-checking-syste...

They probably just haven't been caught yet. Amazon is massive and has tons of people who use their Affiliate API. There's probably a small enforcement team that looks at stuff like this. Price Zombie might have just gotten large enough to show up on their radar.

CCC has been around for a very long time. That seems very unlikely they 'haven't been caught yet'.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#137

Post by Dylan16807 »

plugnburn wrote: post #117
heyplanet wrote: post #93

UPDATE: Hey, lot's of downvotes for this post. Would be great if you guys could explain why you downvote. Sorry, but not much sympathy from me. 1) You knowingly violated the terms of service. Therefore you are denied service now. Nothing to complain about. Honestly, if the API of my website would be intentionally abused in a way that I explicitly exclude in my TOS, I would be seriously pissed. I would probably think…

Upvoted just to keep the thread and go against "elitist" hivemind.

How about the "read the article" hivemind? There's a bit of a difference between "knowingly violated the terms of service" and "told we were in 100% compliance with the rules".

Also, if you want a dumb crime analogy, imagine a situation where robbers get locked up... but only if they voted for a particular party. Uneven enforcement based on whim is a bad thing. Especially when someone is trying extremely hard to follow the rules.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#138

Post by frogpelt »

gdulli wrote: post #71
specialp wrote: post #43

It is against Amazon's interests to have price comparison these days. Early on in my computer shopping days I'd hit pricewatch and buy from random vendors based on price. Eventually this company called Newegg often had the near the lowest price always and had great service. I soon went to shopping at Newegg consistently without bothering to go to pricewatch. Newegg could have raised prices slightly but I did not want…

I never got Prime because the yearly cost of it (even before the price went up) did not amortize to an acceptable shipping cost. I take the slower free shipping because I'm not impatient or buying on impulse. So I've never been locked into Amazon and always been free to shop around. And I can absolutely confirm that Amazon is no longer the "default" winner on price. Sometimes they are, but often not. I don't even hav…

Walmart still meets or beats them on price many times and I can buy online and pick it up on my way home which is effectively same-day delivery.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#139

Post by Dylan16807 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #80
PaulHoule wrote: post #26

name.toLower().contains("zombie") -> FAIL you FAIL

What is it with the downvotes? Zombie is the moe of American culture; you just take something good put Zombie on it, and then idiots will lap it up at the movie theatre.

JustSomeNobody is right. fail-as-a-noun is in the same dumb bucket as overuse of zombies.

Also outside of extreme cases, a silly product name should not be a big problem.

Re: PriceZombie is shutting down

#140

Post by ismail »

hibikir wrote: post #95
pimlottc wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same principle applies within larger companies. It's a lot easier to get things done once you have a guy you know in ops, a gal in DB, a buddy at the IT helpdesk...

Most large organizations end up functioning at all because there are networks of competent, motivated individual that use that kind of favor trading and rule breaking to make the system work despite the bureaucracy. A key part of joining a new large org is to look for one of those networks and prove that you have the skill and attitudes required to get hooked up into that network. It's amazing how companies can flour…

And on the flip side of that you have dysfuncional large orgs where incompetent people get to move up and form networks with others just as incompetent.
Post reply on HN