If You're Not Paying for It; You're the Product.
Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
531–540 of 564 posts
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) That isn't capitalism, you just described a market. Markets existed for thousands of years before capitalism was created.
Yeah I know, but my point was that the market plus money is the indivisible unit of capitalism. You can take any other aspect away and it will still be capitalism. Unless you think some other fundamental characteristic is also required? I'm open to that idea. Private ownership of the means of production isn't really one because that existed during early market economies too.
Yes, private ownership is one condition, but not the only one. I'd add capital intensive production (building plants and machinery for automation), the existance of a labor market and the existance of a big class of people lacking ownership of the means of production, thereby being forced to sell their labor on the market. And you have a class of people living off of the profits generated by the means of production (in contrast to feudalism, where people also lived without working, but the means came from fiefs, not from the market).
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I know, but my point was that the market plus money is the indivisible unit of capitalism. You can take any other aspect away and it will still be capitalism. Unless you think some other fundamental characteristic is also required? I'm open to that idea. Private ownership of the means of production isn't really one because that existed during early market economies too.
Yes, private ownership is one condition, but not the only one. I'd add capital intensive production (building plants and machinery for automation), the existance of a labor market and the existance of a big class of people lacking ownership of the means of production, thereby being forced to sell their labor on the market. And you have a class of people living off of the profits generated by the means of production (…
throwing in all these requirements leaves you with a definition of capitalism that pretty tightly matches the system we have right now. This is my main issue with criticisms of capitalism - they (rightly) criticise the system we live with right now but instead of looking into individual rules, entities and interactions that cause the problems, we declare that (to quote the comment I objected to) "it's not clear [...] that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.". It's terribly reductionist to take a complex interlocking system and say "it's not working, we need to get rid of it!" because chances are that the problems could be fixed within the system itself.
Or in software terms, I think our current form of capitalism is in need of refactoring, not rejecting as fundamentally broken.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a sibling comment pointed out, cheapest doesn't trump everything -- otherwise we'd be ordering from Aliexpress. I've spend _way_ too much money on climbing gear in the past three years, very little of which was on Amazon. I simply can't risk getting counterfeit safety-critical goods. And while I'm not worried about counterfeit mops, I have noticed that the Amazon first habit is now broken in general.
> I simply can't risk getting counterfeit safety-critical goods. That’s a good call. I usually buy direct from someone like Black Diamond when it comes to things like that. Also, like with most industries , it helps to have a friend with a pro deal, if you’re trying to save money on important stuff. I’ve found that AliExpress is good for cheap electronics that I don’t mind waiting for, but not much beyond that. I hav…
On my second order, AliExpress asked for a picture of my passport (or other id). Was a bit disconcerting. Did you encounter that?
I found what I needed on newegg and ebay instead.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. The problem with that statement is that you assume customers will flock back. It might be true in the short term however when you lose customers specifically because of pricing and the monopoly behavior, clients aren't going to quickly forget this behavior. You really think people will come running back and allowing Amazon to…
Ever seen a Black Friday stampede? Price is king.
But a Black Friday stampede is not representative of a long-term stable customer base. Selling a crapload of stuff at a tiny margin doesn't say anything about your business's ability to make it to the next Black Friday.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon search and non amazonbasics products are approaching garbage-level. How about half a page of advertising to buy some Chinese knockoff of a product that will break in a month. My mom wanted some new lighting Apple headphones (earpods). Good luck finding actual Apple products on there. I bought them from B&H instead. No tax + free faster shipping.
Amazon's search has always been terrible in at least some verticals. Computer hardware, for example. I decided I wanted a GTX 1080 recently, and I gave Amazon's search a swing in case I was missing something that pcpartpicker didn't grab. Search "GTX 1080" from their home page. First two results are aftermarket coolers, then we start seeing cards. Okay, let's filter to just a price range likely to be cards... $300-50…
This is basically it. The day that Amazon decided they needed to be a "marketplace" instead of a trusted, authoritative, price-competitive retailer is when they started their slide, to me.
If I wanted to hunt, compare (deceptive) pricing, read fine print, make sure shipping is reasonable, worry about needing a refund, I would have just searched on Google and gone through all the rando e-commerce sites that popped up.
I used to go to Amazon because I knew that, while they might not have the thing I wanted, if I found it, it was the right thing, the price was reasonable, and I'd be able to get it in a reasonable amount of time. These days I barely see a difference between shopping on Amazon and Ebay. The only possible exception might be books.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
>1) The day Amazon feel threatened they can become the cheapest in the market quickly again. Only if they're being vigilant. Usually the threats to a company's business model come from places they don't expect, so by the time they feel squeezed it's already too late. Consider the examples of RIM and Microsoft. > 2.) Given purchasing power scale and people like fast delivery there will only be a handful of companies t…
Call me unimaginative, but I find it unlikely that online retail can be supplanted by some completely different product the way that Blackberries could.
Someone just has to follow the Amazon model and sell to an under-serviced niche market before expanding into different product categories.
There are plenty of product categories that are poorly served by modern Amazon[1]. A small competitor specializing in one of these could eventually supplant them.
[1] Books, ironically, being one of them. Amazon has gotten lazy with book shipping - often using simple envelopes - and they now arrive damaged more often than not.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#538Sooo, just like Google? If these ads become commonplace, savvy users will start to ignore the "first x results" and Amazon will make click/ad money on the the same people that click Google Ads. While we all wish a competitor (just a click away! /s) would arise to compete, we all know from our experience with Google that lock-in is real.
> While we all wish a competitor (just a click away! /s) would arise to compete, we all know from our experience with Google that lock-in is real.
In the case of Google search, it is. Duck duck go is good enough to be my daily driver.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doctor's orders. I'm immune compromised. Dr says it's as effective as tamiflu. From my reading, elderberry doesn't prevent infections, but it does minimize the symptoms, which matches my experience.
https://nccih.nih.gov/health/euroelder >Although some preliminary research indicates that elderberry may relieve flu symptoms, the evidence is not strong enough to support its use for this purpose. You may want to find a new doctor.
I upvoted you. I had tried to reply, but was throttled.
The trouble with facts is they keep changing.
It takes a lot time for the latest clinical results to become mainstream. My doctor is OCD about staying current. Think Dr Rhonda Patrick meets Dr Terry Wahls meets Tim Ferriss meets Dr Atul Gawanda.
I'm still alive because of research, experimental treatments (seattlecca.org, fredhutch.org). I try a lot of things that others shouldn't. With mixed results.
The upside is future patients benefit from my experiences.
Thanks for the link. I'll consult my doctor.
Re: Amazon is stuffing its search results pages with ads
#540The early adopters (e.g. us techies) are leaving. Do companies have metrics for who are these people are, do they care that we form such very small numbers?