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

I agree with both you and parent. People are uncomfortably inconsistent. If a certain rule benefits them then they'll favor it ... right until the rule becomes a problem for them or favors their adversary. Normally, I see this when people talk about their politics.

On the other hand, Amazon has an unbelievable amount of power. And I think things would be a lot better if we as a society applied the spider-man rule. With great power. If a small mom and pop makes this sort of mistake, then I'm all for them correcting it and not giving away $13K equipment for $100. Maybe they were doing it maliciously, but because of how small they are the scope of their malice can only affect a small number of people. On the other hand, Amazon has the power of a first world nation state. If they make a mistake, innocently or maliciously, then the scope can affect a lot of people. Yeah, you messed up Amazon. Don't export the cost of failure onto people without the power to fight it. Pay for it yourself with your considerable resources and then resolve the issue with your considerable resources such that you don't make the mistake again.

EDIT: Mom and pop might not have the resources to cover their mistake AND they might not have the resources to reasonably prevent it from happening again. And because of their lack of resources they are also on a level playing field with their customers. So if their customers feel that what was done to them was wrong, then they can reasonably challenge mom and pop in court. On the other hand, if Amazon decides that their customers are going to lose in court, then their customers are going to lose in court.

This bug probably cost Amazon far far far less than last year's prime day outage.

Also, it got them free press coverage. This could have totally been intentional.

The counter argument that you are not entertaining is precisely the argument that you should entertain. This behavior is called tit for tat and it is often the optimal strategy in many game theory situations. There are some evidence that people behave according to tit for tat, that is they are more likely to take advantage of an actor that has previously acted in bad faith.

I don’t think this is a demonstration of how frail people’s morality is. But rather yet another demonstration that peoples morality can be explained in big part by game theory.

> Most customers will be able to tell that something is off when camera gear is that cheap.

It's Amazon, I expect them not to make any mistake. Theses prices are crazy, but they advertise Prime Day as a day of crazy deals.

I don't believe the asymmetry here is because of morals or entitlement.

Amazon is the one that advertizes the price. Once it's advertised and a transaction has been completed, that's a contract. That contract includes the possibility of returns because they compete in the retail space, where there is an asymmetry in that the company has had ample opportunity to evaluate the product and price it accordingly, but the customer doesn't otherwise have much to evaluate on. If Amazon does this at such an astronomical scale that they don't notice a big price discrepancy, that's the cost of operating such an astronomical scale. They still made the contract - and it was even their lawyers who wrote the contract and spend hours poring over it. If I order truck loads of landscaping material to be delivered to my house and I later learn that it wasn't such a great price, you better believe I'm now stuck with that material and the bill.

I actually had a similar event happen in a real-world retail store. They were advertising frozen chickens for an absurdly low price. I checked with an employee that the price listed was not a mistake - they said it was correct. I grabbed a manager, and checked that the price listed was not a mistake - they said it was correct. I took 2 cart loads of frozen chickens to the front of the store - and they didn't notice the price was absurdly low until I had already swiped my credit card and the cashier was telling me the total. By the time she grabbed a manager, the transaction was complete, and the same manager who confirmed the price now told me it was a mistake. Fuck them - they listed the price, I checked, I finalized the transaction.