191–200 of 293 posts
There were real deals on Amazon hardware devices (Echo, Fire, etc). Most everything else was "meh". camelcamelcamel.com is your friend to research how good of a deal it really is. (no affiliation, just a happy user)
"Order within the next 5 hours and receive free next day shipping". Hmm. OK. click "Please review your order. $8.99 for next day shipping or free two day shipping." Uh, OK. 'Check two day shipping. Submit' "Your order has been placed. Delivery date - 5 days from now"
Trying to win free shipping as a paying prime member is now often a game of trying to be clever - the game they really, really want you to play. I'm growing more and more tired of it, but for now - the time saved going to places locally or site-hopping to find the best deal is still worth more to me, but "for now" means that it's basically under review - that game playing is really making me evaluate that convenience/cost balance..
"Order within the next 5 hours and receive free next day shipping". Hmm. OK. click "Please review your order. $8.99 for next day shipping or free two day shipping." Uh, OK. 'Check two day shipping. Submit' "Your order has been placed. Delivery date - 5 days from now"
I've become more and more disillusioned by Amazon over the years. Prices are now almost never the best; I only buy from them when I need something quickly (and can't get it locally). NewEgg (nearly) always has better tech prices. Walmart often has better prices on everyday items and I can have it immediately. I just bought a pair of tweezers at my local grocery store for two bucks that was $6 on Amazon for the same m…
For just about everything else, Amazon doesn't really offer a great price and the "convenience" value isn't really worth it anymore to me. I can't order lots of routine stuff due to the fraud issues. Even books are usually cheaper at the local bookstore these days.
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So you just helped continue the fraud? Things aren't gonna improve by complaining on HN.
There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.
I don't agree with your actions, but I definitely agree with your statement. It's like judging people for paying less taxes via loopholes, yet it's perfectly legal. We focus on judging the action, rather than fixing the problem.
In this case, judging you for using a broken system, akin to tax loopholes, may not be "good" - but it's certainly not the root of the problem. Judging you would, at best, just cause one more "victim" (for lack of a better word), and completely ignore the root cause.
We as a nation need to - at the very least - focus equally on the root cause as much as those doing something we don't like. In this case, the company and/or Amazon are far more meaningful and fruitful subjects to lay blame on. Forcing one person to keep an item is not going to fix anything but ensure they have a wasted money, and have 1 bad review in a likely sea of reviews. A possibly insignificant digit. Yet, if the company is accurately called out, if Amazon are accurately called out, we may see real change.
I assume we blame you because it's easy. "Don't dodge taxes!" we scream. Yet, it's our laziness that enables tax dodgers due to ultimately ignoring and not fixing the root problems.
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Is there an easy way to comparison shop on Amazon? I saw ads for chrome extensions but I don't know if they are good.
I've been happily using the Camelizer for years: https://camelcamelcamel.com/ You can visit the site and/or install a plugin.
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So you just helped continue the fraud? Things aren't gonna improve by complaining on HN.
There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.
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Not really. He bought the product from someone else. If Amazon didn't need the money and just wanted the analytics, it would have undercut the physical store. The value of the analytics would be in the sale to another company to market to this person, but they fulfilled their need for the product when Amazon acquired the information. So it didn't benefit Amazon and by the time they could have sold it to a third-party…
Simply by looking at a product will build a user profile. It's not about making this sale, but maybe about the next 100 sales.
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There's no point in debating the moral issues when our world is anything but. It's like condemning engineers for enabling governments and corporations to spy on us and constantly erode our privacy. In this particular situation the interaction was between me and the seller. Reviews are written, edited, removed by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers.
> by a person that owes nothing to other potential customers Yet you feel jaded by the other reviewers. You don't owe me anything, but I would encourage you to go back and leave a negative review if the product isn't worth the price. I'm in the market for a cooking knife and would appreciate good reviews. Thanks.