451–460 of 517 posts
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For many self published authors there is just one publisher: Amazon itself.
Perfect! So Amazon would be encouraged to police itself, which benefits everyone.
Can't trust reviews on google maps, glassdoor, amazon, or trip advisor. Can't trust products fulfilled by Amazon or any site with a 3rd party market integrated (Walmart does this too). Can't trust that new book by an author you like and buy is actually written by them and not a scammer. Can't trust nothin' anymore!
AFAIK, Walmart doesn’t commingle inventory though. As long as I make sure the seller is Walmart and not a third party, I can trust their supply chain.
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People might revert to buy in person. I mean you get scammed maybe twice by a company, then buy somewhere else. You quickly realize that it is better spending 3-4 times the amount of money for something that will last 10 years than buying stuff that do not work or keep breaking after a few months/years. I am too poor to be able to afford buying cheap stuff.
If that was going to happen, it already would have. Most people still just buy the cheapest version of an item they are looking for.
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So the trouble is these market places allowing third party vendors on there (obviously). All you need is a system to authenticate reputable sellers. Instead of looking at the stars on a product and clicking “buy now,” folks just need so ask: do I know this seller? Is this the ACTUAL publisher selling me this book? I’d rather go into a real shop anyway. Unless it’s buying some hard-to-find item there’s no excuse.
> I’d rather go into a real shop anyway You’re assuming that scams don’t make their way into regular distributors as they try to cut corners and maintain competitiveness. You already see established brands lower the quality of their products after the first round of reviews online. If found out, they just blame manufacturing. Sorry.
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cough mobilism.org/libgen.is/irc channels/z-library cough
Do the ends justify the means, matey? Have you considered accessing freely-licensed content instead, and supporting authors who believe in the freedom movement, such as Creative Commons? How would you feel, if you were an author, and people openly advocated piracy, such that you were deprived of sales, and earning an honest living?
I'd feel like I need to start publishing on a non-user-hostile platform and, having been a writer for most of my life AND having used Amazon for over a decade, wouldn't be upset at people pirating my work.
Perhaps if things continue this way, more and more authors will seek alternatives to Amazon Kindle and a new platform will emerge. Unlike video content, hosting for ebooks really wouldn't be that expensive. I think competition is viable in this area.
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Tiresome doesn't necessarily mean physically tired. Words do have meaning, and you would know if you read those meaning to understand the idea being presented.
Arduous never means "something that is slightly inconvenient" unless one is prone to exaggeration and has the forbearance of a child. > Tiresome doesn't necessarily mean physically tired. Not necessarily , no, not at all . I suggest a dictionary. Back in the day, people who cared about reading and the meaning of words would keep one handy, often next to the bed.
> a : hard to accomplish or achieve : difficult
~ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arduous
Pretty sure this process qualifies as "hard" when compared to standard methods of purchasing digital goods.
Always fun when someone wants to argue about the definition of a word without actually using the definition of the word.
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How would anyone know to look for an NFT on the fake? The target of the scammers is someone browsing Amazon, who isn't going to know to look for an NFT. Someone familiar with the author is just going to check the author's website and see the list of books they've published.
The NFT/NFC is locked so the tag is immutable, and only the seller and Amazon have the public key. Barring some hack on the NFT/NFC tagging software (which could happen in theory), you'd need both the private and public key to create a counterfeit object, along with a MFA token of some sort (e.g., biometric data, another OTP like Yubikey). And this would be true for every physical and/or digital print.
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We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.
We swim in garbage already (looking at amazon) but bhphoto and sweetwater still exist.
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Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.
> If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers That slide has already started. I can't buy stuff on Amazon anymore, because I don't trust the quality or that I'm not scammed. Unless I trust the author I'd question buying self published books. There's a number of Chinese website, like Wish, that I don't understand. Why bot…
Because they have a warehouse full of ugly misprinted clothes and need to get rid of them. and those clothes still cost (some) money to make or acquire.
and as others have said, not sending anything is wire fraud, and outright scams will catch criminal charges; one more line on an Interpol indictment. Crappy or underperforming goods are a civil issue, and no one is launching an international lawsuit over a $100 item
>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…
It would appear that Jeff Bezos has not trademarked his name.
I don't think I can permalink the USPTO TESS page.