What the hell has happened to Amazon

[BigHorn'13 3363]

Oooh yeah, canceling an item... How the fuck does canceling an item not automatically cancel the fucking item? Nothing's been charged, nothing's been shipped. I know I'm not dealing with the real problem at hand directly (I wish they had some sort of sobriety test you had to pass before ordering. The Mrs. [no pic] orders the stupidest shit that winds up in the trash) but fuck you Amazon.

[markstanco 12577]

Yeah, stock price always reflects quality.
Always

The vendors you choose to do business with reflects on you, not Amazon.

[markstanco 12577]

Having said that I have done business with some shotty China flashlight company a few years ago. Crap product. Gave them 1 star as did others. Oh well, $20 on me for it not being a prime product.

[Vic Mackey 47054]

The one good thing I will say about Amazon is their return policy. It's very painless. They cover shipping. All you do is bring the item to a UPS Store or now Kohl's. They will pack it for you and ship it. You don't even need a box. And once they scan it and pack it, Amazon refunds you. Their company is so massive, that I heard so many returns are scanned in the warehouse and sit on the shelves indefinitely. They don't even give a shit about them.

[Cajun 11706]

19 hours ago, markstanco said:

21 hours ago, Cajun said:

Yeah, stock price always reflects quality.
Always

The vendors you choose to do business with reflects on you, not Amazon.

Nope.  I bought plenty from Amazon.  Prime member too.  Sometimes stuff shows up, sometimes it doesn’t.  Sometimes it’s good shit, sometimes it’s not.  
  
Your assuming that I don’t use Amazon seal of approval vendors reflects on you.

[XYZ 2154]

eBay has been a den of thieves for years now.

[Dbeasy 15052]

See the reference to scams on Amazon. When you go to Amazon, not only will you see all of those scam products at the top of the list, you will see awards from Amazon for them.

https://www.techradar.com/news/best-indoor-tv-antennas

[washparkhorn 9939]

On 5/26/2020 at 7:08 PM, Vic Mackey said:

Someone messaged me on Reddit and asked me if I wanted to make money giving 5 star reviews on Amazon for products they would send me. I would buy the product. Receive it. Review it a few days later. Make the 5 star rating and review. I'd be refunded the whole amount I spent on the product and given $5 profit per review. I didn't go through with this as I did not feel like keeping up with all that but this is a big thing if you search it. Some people do this so much, it is almost a full time job for them. They have to  keep up with it in a spreadsheet.

This tells you that you can not trust the star ratings or even the reviews itself on Amazon. They can be manipulated. People do this to manipulate how high up on the page their product shows up for when someone does a search for it.

Confirmed. What a scam. 

Quote

 

The information found on the open ElasticSearch server outlines a common procedure by which Amazon vendors procure ‘fake reviews’ for their products.

1. These Amazon vendors send to reviewers a list of items/products for which they would like a 5-star review. The people providing the ‘fake reviews’ will then buy the products, leaving a 5-star review on Amazon a few days after receiving their merchandise.
2. Upon completion, the provider of the fake review will send a message to the vendor containing a link to their Amazon profile, along with their PayPal details.
3. Once the Amazon vendor confirms all reviews have been completed, the reviewer will receive a refund through PayPal, keeping the items they bought for free as a form of payment.
4. The refund for any purchased goods is actioned through PayPal and not directly through Amazon’s platform. This makes the five-star review look legitimate, so as not to arouse suspicion from Amazon moderators.

 

 https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/amazon-reviews-leak-report/

[Chopper 17236]

Amazon has everyone by the short hairs and they absolutely don't give a fuck.

A couple months ago I posted a 1 star review for a shitty, defective product from a 3rd party seller that shipped directly from amazon. For some reason amazon gave the seller my contact information (even though they say they don't and it's against their policy to do so) and the seller has been emailing me nonstop with offers of an amazon gift card if I'll delete the review. It's a $13 product and they've offered $40 for me to delete the review. Thus far I've ignored them. I emailed customer support at amazon a month ago alerting them to the problem and the seller's extracurricular activities, and amazon apparently doesn't give a flying fuck.

Searching for a product on amazon is so fucking painful. Results are filled with grifters and shady sellers. Even making a search ultra specific doesn't help. If anything it just makes the search more painful.

Here's a search for a wifi extender I just ran and sorted by average customer review. Somehow each and every product has the equivalent: 2,813 5 star reviews.

If you've read the elon musk thread you've seen me link this recent article by Cory Doctorow, about the 'enshittification of the internet'. Amazon is example #1.

Quote

 

When a platform starts, it needs users, so it makes itself valuable to users. Think of Amazon: For many years, it operated at a loss, using its access to the capital markets to subsidize everything you bought. It sold goods below cost and shipped them below cost. It operated a clean and useful search. If you searched for a product, Amazon tried its damndest to put it at the top of the search results.

This was a hell of a good deal for Amazon's customers. Lots of us piled in, and lots of brick-and-mortar retailers withered and died, making it hard to go elsewhere. Amazon sold us ebooks and audiobooks that were permanently locked to its platform with DRM, so that every dollar we spent on media was a dollar we'd have to give up if we deleted Amazon and its apps. And Amazon sold us Prime, getting us to pre-pay for a year's worth of shipping. Prime customers start their shopping on Amazon, and 90 percent of the time, they don't search anywhere else.

That tempted in lots of business customers—marketplace sellers who turned Amazon into the "everything store" it had promised from the beginning. As these sellers piled in, Amazon shifted to subsidizing suppliers. Kindle and Audible creators got generous packages. Marketplace sellers reached huge audiences and Amazon took low commissions from them.

This strategy meant that it became progressively harder for shoppers to find things anywhere except Amazon, which meant that they only searched on Amazon, which meant that sellers had to sell on Amazon. That's when Amazon started to harvest the surplus from its business customers and send it to Amazon's shareholders. Today, Marketplace sellers are handing more than 45 percent of the sale price to Amazon in junk fees. The company's $31 billion "advertising" program is really a payola scheme that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to bid on the chance to be at the top of your search.

Searching Amazon doesn't produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon's "Most Favored Nation" requirement for sellers means that they can't sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for "cat beds" and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45 percent in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn't charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for "cat bed" are 50 percent ads.

Searching Amazon doesn't produce a list of the products that most closely match your search, it brings up a list of products whose sellers have paid the most to be at the top of that search. Those fees are built into the cost you pay for the product, and Amazon's "Most Favored Nation" requirement for sellers means that they can't sell more cheaply elsewhere, so Amazon has driven prices at every retailer.

Search Amazon for "cat beds" and the entire first screen is ads, including ads for products Amazon cloned from its own sellers, putting them out of business (third parties have to pay 45 percent in junk fees to Amazon, but Amazon doesn't charge itself these fees). All told, the first five screens of results for "cat bed" are 50 percent ads.

This is enshittification: Surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit. From mobile app stores to Steam, from Facebook to Twitter, this is the enshittification lifecycle.

 

I have walmart+ for free through a credit card, but their website sucks even worse than amazon's, and they don't have anywhere near the inventory or delivery capability - unless it's something in-stock at a nearby store. I've gotta cancel fucking amazon though. I hate 'em. Can't do that until I get my wife to ditch her kindle e-reader though.  

Edited March 4, 2023 by Chopper

[LCHorn 2620]

That article is terrific and very much in line with a recent Ezra Klein podcast about how Google search has deteriorated (although I think the thesis of the podcast was that the internet as a whole has gotten more useless and Google search somewhat reflects that).  Thank you for sharing it @Chopper

[Bevo 13577]

24 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

That article is terrific and very much in line with a recent Ezra Klein podcast about how Google search has deteriorated (although I think the thesis of the podcast was that the internet as a whole has gotten more useless and Google search somewhat reflects that).  Thank you for sharing it @Chopper

Google sucks, but it gives better results than Bing. I always thought Altavista gave good results back in the day - I know it was sold off for next to nothing but it completely disappeared after that. i assume it was some Google subsidiary who bought them to keep a competitor out of the market.

Google is particularly terrible for topics that have political implications. I can't tell if it is purposeful or if there are so many shit articles that "good" articles get buried. I would assume it is purposeful, though. One example, I was trying to find out who the civilians were who first discovered the Chinese balloon over the US - I had to go to the 3rd or 4th page to find an article that wasn't blocked that had a lead. Once, I got one name, I was able to get a little better results until I came to the original article from a newspaper in Washington state that described how the balloon was discovered by civilians. And I can't remember but that article might have needed ladder to unblock it.

[Dnaguy 11979]

Just wait until Bing search starts telling you to leave your wife.

The internet with AI is about to put the paprika back in your goulash.

[Deej 76800]

Has anyone used AI to replicate a Derka post?

[Parliament 14260]

39 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

Just wait until Bing search starts telling you to leave your wife.

The internet with AI is about to put the paprika back in your goulash.

And beans in your chili.

[bernorange 8362]

All your 9.95 are belong to ChatGPT.  Make your time.

[LCHorn 2620]

2 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

Anyone look at the “articles” recently that Apple brings up for news associated with a stock when you click on that stock in the iPhone’s stock app? Even with large companies that have plenty of actual news, it’s 90% automated gibberish that just follows a useless template.  “Exxon Mobil was down ____ percent today, which underperformed the S&P 500 by ___ percent.  Stocks can underperform the broader market for a variety of reasons, and past performance is not predictive of future performance.  I love lamp.”  Gee, thanks for that insight.

The enshittification is real, and AI is going to make it so much worse.  

Apple’s really is terrible and kind of a weird result when so much of their value comes from cultivating a particular experience.  

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4976]

On 3/4/2023 at 7:06 PM, longhornmatt said:

Anyone look at the “articles” recently that Apple brings up for news associated with a stock when you click on that stock in the iPhone’s stock app? Even with large companies that have plenty of actual news, it’s 90% automated gibberish that just follows a useless template.  “Exxon Mobil was down ____ percent today, which underperformed the S&P 500 by ___ percent.  Stocks can underperform the broader market for a variety of reasons, and past performance is not predictive of future performance.  I love lamp.”  Gee, thanks for that insight.

The enshittification is real, and AI is going to make it so much worse.  

Google is pretty terrible when trying to look for obscure stuff as well. If you type in a specific search term, they include results for other similar but not as specific things and you have to wade through a bunch of crap to find what you are looking for. DuckDuckGo is better in many cases, but isn't as good for more common type searches.

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

On 3/4/2023 at 8:21 PM, Deej said:

Has anyone used AI to replicate a Derka post?

Artificial Idiocy?

[TexasEd 8067]

On 3/4/2023 at 7:21 PM, Deej said:

Has anyone used AI to replicate a Derka post?

Rick Barnes and I were sitting in a booth at iHop and there was this girl sitting between us she wanted to go to my place but Rick and I were having a great discussion on defensive schemes.