A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing • Hacker News Board

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#211

Post by pas » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #68

unclekev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do people manage to figure out such elaborate ways to manipulate Amazon results without getting banned? Getting banned has minimal cost? Poor detection? Inside information? They don't actually ban the accounts doing this. They only remove the reviews/listings, but don't take any action on the accounts (so they just re-list 24 hours later) Apparently when Amazon acts, they are just removing the fake reviews, som…

> Amazon simply do not care Why though? How does this not hurt Amazon long term? What are they gaining from attracting dodgy sellers in the short term?

Long term is subjective.

But the more important point is, Amazon is a must-use shipping provider with a crappy platform. They don't give a fuck about the retail part. They diversified with AWS, Jeff plays with his billions, fights unions, tracks piss bottles, cancels or renews Prime shows, goes to space, etc.. etc.. the site at this point is almost just a cute idiosyncrasy. As long as it runs and the orders are flowing, it's A-OK. Of course there's are probably many teams working on "reforming" it. The NEW amazon.com. The redesign. The refactor. The revamp. The modernization. But all of those are just to keep people working there so they maintain the old behemoth while their project slowly gets put on the backburner (and/or gets scaled down to a small demo page somewhere that no one ever sees or uses).

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#212

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

CliffStoll wrote: post #183

makeitdouble wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To note, buying from the sellers website can be a blessing or a curse. It is true in sometimes unexpected ways. For instance some sellers just don't care about notifications; it might be because they usually work with professional buyers who work on a long timescale ("I need it for this quarter") and will contact the seller on a regular basis if they care. Some sellers just don't want to deal with you. I had a "mom a…

Having sold Klein bottles from my website for 20 years and from Amazon from 4 or 5 years, here's my experience: - it's way more fun through my Kleinbottle website. I've customized my checkout to what I sell. When there's a problem, it's easier to contact a buyer. - I can show any amount of information on my website; Amazon has 5 bullet points and 1000 characters of description. This, of course, cuts both ways - a qui…

I actually remember visiting your site at one point, and I think this is a case where going through a seller is a net advantage :)

I see it not really on the "shopping" experience, and more as you point out because as a buyer I'd need/want way more information than what Amazon will ever provide on a single page, and also because there is a context surrounding the product that is far far away from a "just buy" transaction.

I also see some hobby sites like Bricklink as something Amazon will never be a replacement of. Fundamentally I think specific seller sites are needed.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#213

Post by CliffStoll » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

indigodaddy wrote: post #119

mprovost wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His TED talk is amazing, his energy for learning is so infectious. I just meant to post the link here but had to watch the whole thing again! https://www.ted.com/talks/clifford_stoll_the_call_to_learn?l...

There’s a Cliff Stoll Ted Talk!?? I’ve read the book and watched the complimentary PBS side piece, but wasn’t aware of a ted talk, thanks!

Sigh - sends me back 15 years or so.

I'd prepared a 1 hour talk. When I was about to go on stage, they told me that I had only 15 minutes. So, well, I remembered one of the few things I learned in grad school: talk fast and don't give 'em a standing target.

Covered my points and finished in, yep, 18 minutes.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#214

Post by Qwertious » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

vincnetas wrote: post #86

wyldfire wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect people's religions but adherence to constraints like these -- to the extent that the automatons cannot even work -- are silly.

Let's take this to extreme. Commandment "Thou shalt not kill", would it be ok to let automatons kill instead of you and this would not be considered sin? (playing devils advocate)

Building (and activating) a machine that's designed to kill, obviously violates the "thou shalt not kill" and makes you an attempted murderer the moment you activate it. But the actual moment of killing? You're literally not doing that (you could be sleeping or have forgotten about the machine, at the moment it first kills).

Similarly, building the e-commerce machine obviously can't be done on the sabbath, but if it's already running then you're not actually working.

For example, suppose you push a rock off a huge cliff. If the rock tumbles for a full week after you push it, were you pushing it off a cliff for the full week (including the sabbath)? Or did you only push it the one time on a tuesday?

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#215

Post by dave1999x » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

Tempest1981 wrote: post #172

theonething wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to give up the convenience and fast delivery (with Amazon Prime) though. In my experience, I haven't run into many problems with fraud or fake products (that I know of). I try to avoid third party sellers and only order from Amazon or the seller.

Fast delivery seems to have become an addiction in our fast-paced lives. Do we really need that new thing tomorrow? Probably not. Yet we can't delay the gratification.

It's not about delayed gratification - it's about predictability.

I know what I'm doing tomorrow if I can afford to wait for a delivery. What will I be doing on a random day next week? next month? Less so!

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#216

Post by dpwm » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

praptak wrote: post #184

fxtentacle wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Alibaba appears to have higher standards for their product listings, because pages are never merged. So the review takeover described in this post would not be possible on Alibaba ^_^

Which makes you wonder why Amazon keeps this scam-enabling "feature". Do legit sellers really need it that much that Amazon keeps it despite the scams?

Many legit sellers – big names in all sectors – use the listings merging feature, from kindle books that are almost unreadable to network equipment that has variants with very different qualities. In many cases, Amazon is the seller.

As a customer I find it infuriating, and it feels as though it has been made more difficult over time to read the reviews for just the selected product.

I suspect that many transactions on Amazon simply would not happen if customers were better informed about what they are buying. I have no doubt that this is true across retailers – just think of all the things that have been hyped and sold that end up in garage sales barely used. It's far more common to see crap with five-star reviews than something great with three- or four-star reviews.

The feature kind of makes sense for purely cosmetic changes, like color – but even then it would be useful to have information about the actual variant.

I don't think this is some UI problem. I am quite sure it could be solved very quickly by showing reviews for the selected variant first, and then making it clear that other reviews are for other variants.

There is a way of somewhat mitigating this merging feature: Don't just look at aggregate review scores. Read the lower-end reviews. If the flaws are petty or expected, then that's great. If your variant is the worst of the bunch, you'll find out. But even with all that, it doesn't sort the takeover problem in the article.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#217

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

Don’t they know who they are messing with? This man took down a spy ring from their ping times ;-)

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#218

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

beardyw wrote: post #174

furyg3 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Cliff, I just have to say thanks. I read the Cuckoo's Egg in the early 90s and while I was already interested in computers, the idea that there were "networks" of them out there... well... it blew my mind. I immediately went to my school librarian and said I wanted to try to connect computers together, or try to dial-up to library information services, etc. We started learning together. You were a huge inspiratio…

I read it only last year. A brilliant and now historical book.

There’s a movie about it, with Cliff Stoll himself on the lead role.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#219

Post by arp242 » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

CliffStoll wrote: post #213

indigodaddy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a Cliff Stoll Ted Talk!?? I’ve read the book and watched the complimentary PBS side piece, but wasn’t aware of a ted talk, thanks!

Sigh - sends me back 15 years or so. I'd prepared a 1 hour talk. When I was about to go on stage, they told me that I had only 15 minutes. So, well, I remembered one of the few things I learned in grad school: talk fast and don't give 'em a standing target. Covered my points and finished in, yep, 18 minutes.

Well, I bought a Klein bottle and knitted Klein hat after seeing that talk many years ago, so it wasn't entirely useless :-)

I still have the hat. I no longer have the bottle as I moved to the other side of the world a number of years ago, and after inquiring with some mathematician friends it turned out that four-dimensional glass bottles are not compatible with three-dimensional backpacks :-/

When I got the package it was covered in hand-written notes; gosh, I don't remember what it said exactly, but it was hilarious; somehow you even managed to put some joke in Dutch on it. I wanted to email something back but I was shy and didn't know what to say. So, about a decade too late, thanks! Not only was I very happy with the bottle, the packaging absolutely made my day all those years ago.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#220

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

TchoBeer wrote: post #36

jamestnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stumbled upon an unusual policy when trying to order from B&H the first time. They are not open for business on Shabbat (NYC local time), and this includes their online checkout! I could fill up my cart, but had to come back later to do my purchase.

Woah, I did not know B&H was an orthodox institution! That's quite neat.

Very much so.

It’s an amazing retail space. They have this awesome overhead rail system for delivering goods, and their checkout resembles customs at an airport (a bit disconcerting).