Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#331

Post by bko » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

thrax wrote: post #325

bko wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, there is an asymmetry in power too. Amazon can afford to double check or triple check everything if it makes economic sense. There's an asymmetry because Amazon can "afford" to double check everything? How? They lists millions of items. You're only in the market for a few. They're good at inventory management, but the scale is crazy which is why this mispricing is happening. Besides, I don't see why them "be…

Repeat after me: Amazon is not a person. Why aren't you arguing against the daily electrocution of toasters?

Amazon is a corporation, essentially a legal structure meant to encompass a group of investors. Investors range from its founder Jeff Bezos to small investors holding Amazon shares in pension funds and 401ks. You too can buy one share of Amazon for ~$2000 or invest in a low cost ETF that would own Amazon. The value of the stock is driven partly by expectation of future earnings. If Amazon were to lose future earnings relative to what investors believe they will receive, the stock price will likely go down.

On the extreme lets say that Amazon stock goes to $0, it would reduce the wealth of the world by about $1 trillion in stock valuation. That means that $1 trillion disappears from people's accounts (with ~$100 billion disappearing from Bezos' account). This would be wealth destruction no different from simultaneously reaching into every person's wallet and removing some amount of cash and burning it.

The whole "[corp] is not a person so [immoral act] is okay" is not productive.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#332

Post by defertoreptar » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Amazon is expected to be good sports and take the loss exactly because that is their business strategy. Their mission statement is something like, "we seek to become Earth's most customer centric company." If they didn't have a relaxed refund policy, they wouldn't have the reputation they currently enjoy.

Contrary to what you've said, they do have public trust: just in the form of "Amazon does right by the customer." It's trust, not morality, that forms these expectations.

For the trustworthy customers who are equally concerned about their reputation, they wouldn't dare "cheat the system" by exploiting a pricing glitch. For them, there is symmetry of expectations.

The asymmetry only happens for customers who do not care about their reputation for being trustworthy. This can go the other way as well: an unscrupulous company who takes advantage of naive and trusting customers.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#333

Post by gwd » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

air7 wrote: post #290

sgift wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is not a person, it's a company. Attributing moral to a transaction with non-person entities is frail itself. Does moral even apply here? What does it mean?

Interesting to compare this to religious morals: "Thou shall not steal" has nothing to do with the the victim, only the actor. In secular morality, things are more nuanced and the wealth/likeness/actions of the victim help determine how "bad" the act was. Amazon being large/rich changes things compared to a small m&p shop. See also: Jack and the Beanstalk, Robin Hood.

> "Thou shall not steal" has nothing to do with the the victim, only the actor.

But in the context in which "Thou shalt not steal" was written, the punishment had to do with the victim: If you stole something, you had to pay back at least twice as much.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#334

Post by throwawaylolx » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #331

thrax wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeat after me: Amazon is not a person. Why aren't you arguing against the daily electrocution of toasters?

Amazon is a corporation, essentially a legal structure meant to encompass a group of investors. Investors range from its founder Jeff Bezos to small investors holding Amazon shares in pension funds and 401ks. You too can buy one share of Amazon for ~$2000 or invest in a low cost ETF that would own Amazon. The value of the stock is driven partly by expectation of future earnings. If Amazon were to lose future earnings…

>This would be wealth destruction no different from simultaneously reaching into every person's wallet and removing some amount of cash and burning it.

Unrealised profits are very much different than physical cash.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#335

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:27 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #306

kartan wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. First, there is an asymmetry in power too. Amazon can afford to double check or triple check everything if it makes economic sense. Secondly, companies does not have morals. If you allow big corporations to change prices as they see fit because there is a "mistake". Companies will exploit that to their advantage with psychopathic precisi…

Companies are not human beings, as other comments already have said, to involve morality in this issue makes no sense whatsoever. This argument is wrong, there is no attempt to associate morality with a company. It is the customer and only the customer holding the arguably conflicting believes that errors in favour of customers should not be corrected while errors in favour of the company should be corrected. So you…

If you make a mistake, you cancel it with a standard return policy.

Amazon's "mistake" looks like bait and switch, or any number of other scams. I'm under the impression they usually cancel said orders.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#336

Post by dotancohen » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

defertoreptar wrote: post #332

sagebird wrote: post #239

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

Amazon is expected to be good sports and take the loss exactly because that is their business strategy. Their mission statement is something like, "we seek to become Earth's most customer centric company." If they didn't have a relaxed refund policy, they wouldn't have the reputation they currently enjoy. Contrary to what you've said, they do have public trust: just in the form of "Amazon does right by the customer."…

And I am a loyal customer due to that strategy. I had a month in which I had to cancel my credit cards, and my AWS account went unpaid. I knew it would be an entire month before I could put another card on the account due to stupidity at my bank.

I called them up and the rep not only let the account continue to operate unpaid, he waived the payment for the month. I have never, ever seen such customer service. AWS might be expensive, it might have a clunky interface and IAM might be a pain in the ass. But I know that I can trust them to keep my business running no matter what.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#337

Post by tobr » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:41 AM UTC

gwd wrote: post #329

tobr wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. [citation needed] Audible (part of Amazon) started billing me silently for a subscription I did not use, for several years, after I had used a free trial. When I discovered it and canceled the subscription, I could see how around the time the free trial was converted to a running paid subscription, they…

FWIW Audible emails me every month to tell me have a new credit available. Possibly put in place after your experience; but it seems more like just "keeping people engaged in our service" is a better way to sustain subscriptions than hoping people forget about it. And, not to victim-blame here, but I can't quite understand your response to mysterious charges that appear on your card every month. I try to understand w…

> FWIW Audible emails me every month to tell me have a new credit available.

Perhaps you actually use your Audible account? As I said, they emailed me during the trial, then stopped. They know a certain percentage of users will be unaware of the charges, and they likely prefer to keep it that way.

> not to victim-blame here

Thanks, but you did just that anyway. I know I could have been more careful. I was responding to a comment claiming that Amazon is forgiving when a customer accidentally spends 100’s of dollars they didn’t mean to, which, given what happened to me, simply isn’t true.

Good on you for reviewing each and every transaction, but I have no reason to believe that most people do that.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#338

Post by bko » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:46 AM UTC

throwawaylolx wrote: post #334

bko wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is a corporation, essentially a legal structure meant to encompass a group of investors. Investors range from its founder Jeff Bezos to small investors holding Amazon shares in pension funds and 401ks. You too can buy one share of Amazon for ~$2000 or invest in a low cost ETF that would own Amazon. The value of the stock is driven partly by expectation of future earnings. If Amazon were to lose future earnings…

>This would be wealth destruction no different from simultaneously reaching into every person's wallet and removing some amount of cash and burning it. Unrealised profits are very much different than physical cash.

I own the stock and can sell it for $2000. If the value of the stock drops to $0 and I can no longer get $2000 for the stock, it would be no different than me losing $2000 cash

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#339

Post by dnial02 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:48 AM UTC

air7 wrote: post #290

sgift wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is not a person, it's a company. Attributing moral to a transaction with non-person entities is frail itself. Does moral even apply here? What does it mean?

Interesting to compare this to religious morals: "Thou shall not steal" has nothing to do with the the victim, only the actor. In secular morality, things are more nuanced and the wealth/likeness/actions of the victim help determine how "bad" the act was. Amazon being large/rich changes things compared to a small m&p shop. See also: Jack and the Beanstalk, Robin Hood.

Interestingly, when I see the wikipedia page, the Jewish interpretation is nothing to do with stealing property, but by stealing person(kidnapping).

So the correct translation from Jewish tradition is thou shall not kidnap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_steal

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#340

Post by FiberBundle » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 10:48 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #331

thrax wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeat after me: Amazon is not a person. Why aren't you arguing against the daily electrocution of toasters?

Amazon is a corporation, essentially a legal structure meant to encompass a group of investors. Investors range from its founder Jeff Bezos to small investors holding Amazon shares in pension funds and 401ks. You too can buy one share of Amazon for ~$2000 or invest in a low cost ETF that would own Amazon. The value of the stock is driven partly by expectation of future earnings. If Amazon were to lose future earnings…

I don't think Amazon's stock going to $0 would necessarily entail wealth destruction. The money doesn't just disappear, people who have sold at the high have profited. Wealth destruction only happens when credit is involved.