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

The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

janavirgin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#21

Post by yowlingcat »

zarkov99 wrote: post #20
yowlingcat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the subject is a complaint and not an exploration? It seemed more to be an exploration of the energetic and computational cost of serving an average Amazon user. I found it fascinating. 30 watts and 88MB to load a page of otherwise static content does seem a little ludicrous, and I've definitely thought the same thing about much of the content I see on the internet that loves loading a bunch of crap that…

Yes, it seems pretty clear that the author feels oppressed by Amazon: "To put it bluntly, the user is not just exploited by means of their free labor, but is also forced to assume the energy costs of such exploitation."

Leaving the author's admittedly sanctimonious tone aside (which I find a little grating), don't you think that the topic of energy costs of these "fat" applications is worthy of exploration?

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#22

Post by dylan604 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #16
graphememes wrote: post #4

90% of the code is jQuery / third-party (also includes jquery / polyfills) / polyfills btw. At some point, convenience wins.

It will come back to haunt Amazon as soon as they start to scale

I think they are waiting for FB and Netflix to show results of their scaling attempts before they truly go full scale

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#23

Post by zarkov99 »

yowlingcat wrote: post #21
zarkov99 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it seems pretty clear that the author feels oppressed by Amazon: "To put it bluntly, the user is not just exploited by means of their free labor, but is also forced to assume the energy costs of such exploitation."

Leaving the author's admittedly sanctimonious tone aside (which I find a little grating), don't you think that the topic of energy costs of these "fat" applications is worthy of exploration?

Yes, I think that is interesting, but not enough for me to get over the oppression narrative. Furthermore, I am skeptical that there is anything there at all, I can't image that the energy I waste the few times a week I go to Amazon to be anything but a rounding error on my overall energy expenditure.

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#25

Post by corndoge »

Thus, the 8,724 pages of code that track and personalize user behavior and experience and were involuntarily loaded by the customer (me) through the browser, are evidence of Amazon’s core money-making strategy at work. Moreover, all the energy needed to load this relatively large amount of information was effectively unloaded on the customer (me), who ultimately assumed not just part of the economic cost of Amazon’s hidden monetization processes, but also a portion of its environmental footprint.

Holy crap. Are you telling me, when I visit a website, that it uses electricity? That I'm downloading code onto my computer? That when I tell my browser to load a webpage, that page loads against my will?

Why aren't more people talking about this?

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#26

Post by saagarjha »

ginko wrote: post #6

>The average amount of energy needed to load each of the twelve web interfaces, along with each one’s endless fragments of code, was 30 watts. What is that supposed to mean? A watt(= 1 J/s) is a measure power so energy per unit of time. Shouldn't this rather be given in joule?

The unit appears to have been fixed to “wh”.

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#27

Post by yowlingcat »

zarkov99 wrote: post #23
yowlingcat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving the author's admittedly sanctimonious tone aside (which I find a little grating), don't you think that the topic of energy costs of these "fat" applications is worthy of exploration?

Yes, I think that is interesting, but not enough for me to get over the oppression narrative. Furthermore, I am skeptical that there is anything there at all, I can't image that the energy I waste the few times a week I go to Amazon to be anything but a rounding error on my overall energy expenditure.

I get that, but hear me out. I think what's fascinating is not necessarily the rounding error on your overall energy expenditure, but the likely sheer overall cost of that on the whole. I think similar thoughts about bitcoin mining -- the truth us, if you add up a lot of this computation in aggregate, how much of it is wasteful as a whole to the organization or network paying for it? That number, while maybe not huge enough for many orgs to do anything about it, is still pretty large, and certainly interesting for me to think about.

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#28

Post by gorpomon »

It's presented too dramatically IMO, but the core argument is one we need to raise awareness of: you use energy and emit carbon so a company can run code that in part grooms you into being a better consumer of their products.

Brick and Mortar stores do this too. Some ways are fun and nice like air conditioning and wine while browsing. Others not so much: facial recognition at Target's nationwide, and companies like ShopperTrak and others.

No matter if it's online or in person it's getting increasingly creepy. Any awareness of it a net positive, even if it is a tad dramatic.

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#29

Post by Jamwinner »

octosphere wrote: post #24

Never liked when Amazon increases the price a few days later after witnessing you researching something to buy. This is why I only purchase items 'on-the-spot' in a small window of time which allows me to escape such a practice.

They effectively trained you to buy more, faster. Bravo!

If you wait another week, the price usually falls again. Cammel3 is a good place to look to keep yourself sane on prices. Many 3rd party resellers mostly do it to get people to buy, I have seen much less from actual 'amazon sold' items.

Re: The Hidden Life of an Amazon User

#30

Post by zarkov99 »

yowlingcat wrote: post #27
zarkov99 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think that is interesting, but not enough for me to get over the oppression narrative. Furthermore, I am skeptical that there is anything there at all, I can't image that the energy I waste the few times a week I go to Amazon to be anything but a rounding error on my overall energy expenditure.

I get that, but hear me out. I think what's fascinating is not necessarily the rounding error on your overall energy expenditure, but the likely sheer overall cost of that on the whole. I think similar thoughts about bitcoin mining -- the truth us, if you add up a lot of this computation in aggregate, how much of it is wasteful as a whole to the organization or network paying for it? That number, while maybe not huge…

Sure, but that applies to anything, does it not? If one multiplies anything one does by 7 billion there is a good chance a large number will come out. Maybe that is a little interesting at first glance but not in any larger sense.
Post reply on HN