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The Amazon tax

seths.blog

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Re: The Amazon tax

#661

Post by Brendinooo »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #531
Brendinooo wrote: post #455

>If you’re searching for an air fryer, Amazon already knows quite a bit. They know the best-reviewed, least-returned, best-priced model. The only purpose of the ads is to get you to pick an air fryer that isn’t that one (or for the best air fryer, to keep you on track to buy the one you wanted in the first place). What if I made a new air fryer that hasn't received a lot of reviews and costs a little more because of…

I'm surprised there isn't a market for an amazon like competitor that is a mix of Amazon and Consumer Reports. They do the reviews themselves, watch for returns and quality issues, and can actually provide consumers with the best products.

Maybe it really is impossible to run a business that way, and that's why Consumer Reports is stuck a stickler about putting up walls around its reputation for independence.

Re: The Amazon tax

#662

Post by arcanemachiner »

14 wrote: post #611
ndiddy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of an analogy I read a while ago in an article critiquing keyword based online advertising (can't find the article unfortunately). A restaurant wants to drum up new business, so the owner tasks three employees with handing out flyers with coupons attached. The coupons are marked to identify which employee passed them out, and each week the owner gives a bonus to the employee whose coupons get redeemed t…

This reminds me of my dad's story about decades ago as a kid paperboy they had a contest get people to sign up and who ever had the most after a few months would win a bike. He smoked everyone. They were desperate to know how he got so many people to sign up but he refused to tell them. His trick, well back then for a nickel you could go to a paper vending machine and buy a paper. But it would just open up and you co…

> back then for a nickel you could go to a paper vending machine and buy a paper. But it would just open up and you could literally grab all of them if you wanted.

I miss that world.

Re: The Amazon tax

#663

Post by cyansands »

msy wrote: post #566

This is a lot of words to describe rent seeking. Google, Amazon, Instagram/Meta, ultimately all of these are earning their outsized margins through market-dominance enabled intermediation of commerce. I search for 'foo' and the top result is either Foo paying through the nose for what should really should be organic traffic or Bar 'buying' the click instead. In the absence of anti-trust the only winning move is to bu…

[flagged]

Re: The Amazon tax

#665

Post by gyulai »

Frieren wrote: post #655
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #590

I see the exact same thing on Play Store, and I think Google is outright complicit in fraud. The top result when you search for an app, even if by exact name, is always, literally 100% of the time, not the app you are looking for, but some other ad-infested knockoff spyware shit whose developer paid Google to be placed before the real thing.

No regulations -> fraud and scams Expecting that the rich will do the right thing out of their good hearts is not just naive but actively damaging for society.

You forget a third option. A monopolist doing the right thing from their good heart? Not gonna work. Legislators micromanaging every last aspect of every last thing through regulations? Not gonna work. Legislators squashing monopolies and making rules to keep competition intact and put meaningful choice into consumers' hands: Might work.

Re: The Amazon tax

#666

Post by thelastgallon »

According to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, cloud capital is a new type of physical and digital machinery—such as server farms, fiber-optic cables, and algorithms—that does not produce traditional goods. Instead, it shapes human behavior and extracts "cloud rent," which he argues has replaced traditional capitalism with a system of technofeudalism.

Amazon, Google, FB, Apple, Microsoft have built monopolies to extract rents from everyone.

Re: The Amazon tax

#668

Post by throwawayffffas »

mertd wrote: post #588
cortesoft wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I wonder… the author says that: > The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“ But that doesn’t mean the ad is a good investment. It isn’t just about the yield from the ad, but about the DIFFERENCE in yield between having the ad and not having the ad. It is really simplistic thinking to just look at conversion rates.

I'm equally confused here. Who searches "Seth Godin The Knot" and if the first result isn't that exact book, goes and buys a book about knots or weddings or something? The book should be there in plain view at the top of organic best matches. Did they really test this "yield" claim?

I believe what happens for these users is they think amazon does not have it since it's not visible on their screen or near the top and click away, look for something else.

Re: The Amazon tax

#669

Post by tdeck »

tapland wrote: post #603
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #590

I see the exact same thing on Play Store, and I think Google is outright complicit in fraud. The top result when you search for an app, even if by exact name, is always, literally 100% of the time, not the app you are looking for, but some other ad-infested knockoff spyware shit whose developer paid Google to be placed before the real thing.

I saw a google authenticator copy (using the old icon but named Authenticator) about two weeks ago. It was the top result but an ad and not by Google. Sad I didn't screenshot it, couldn't find it when searching Google Authenticator again.

Remember Google needs to prevent sideloading for your own good, despite the fact that they can't / won't even keep this out of the Play store.

Re: The Amazon tax

#670

Post by WhrRTheBaboons »

mertd wrote: post #588
cortesoft wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I wonder… the author says that: > The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“ But that doesn’t mean the ad is a good investment. It isn’t just about the yield from the ad, but about the DIFFERENCE in yield between having the ad and not having the ad. It is really simplistic thinking to just look at conversion rates.

I'm equally confused here. Who searches "Seth Godin The Knot" and if the first result isn't that exact book, goes and buys a book about knots or weddings or something? The book should be there in plain view at the top of organic best matches. Did they really test this "yield" claim?

Probably not a lot of people. But a sizeable portion will instead go 'Huh, I guess it's not on Amazon. I'll wait until it is' and end up not buying the book.

Amazon won't care because it's peanuts for them. Sellers will care and will pay amazon more in ad revenue than it will cost in potential sales.

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