8 ms·

This is why I've been unhappy to see Bezos gaining steam. As his other products become more successful, you can expect a lot more of this. Alexa is not your fr

by tfha 8y ago

This is why I've been unhappy to see Bezos gaining steam. As his other products become more successful, you can expect a lot more of this. Alexa is not your friend, Alexa is a tool to make Amazon money. Amazon's move into media is not an effort to improve the media system, it's a recognition that there's a lot of money to be made by controlling the media that people consume. Same thing with the fire phone, it wasn't an attempt to make a better phone, it's an attempt to gain access to all of that juicy information that Google gets from Android. Bezos is out to make an empire, everything else comes second.

ckastner 8y ago
> Bezos is out to make an empire, everything else comes second. I share this sentiment. For comparison, I believe the amount of and methods with which Google collects data to be wrong, but I also believe that they don't believe they are doing something (outright) wrong. Amazon, however, must know that they have a counterfeit goods problem, but it seems that they couldn't care less about it. Same applies to gaming the review system.
- amelius 8y ago
  > but I also believe that they don't believe they are doing something (outright) wrong. With so many engineers working at Google, someone there should be thinking they are doing something wrong. Right? Or are you more thinking of a collective conscious of some kind?
  - ckastner 8y ago
    I mostly meant upper management, where strategic and policy decisions are made; where the direction a company is going is determined. Not that non-management is irrelevant. It's just less relevant. Because what is OK or not OK is ultimately decided at the very top. For example, in the not-so-recent-past, Uber was rocked with scandals on a weekly basis. The first step to fix this was to find a new CEO.
    - james-mcelwain 8y ago
      It's also a matter of degree vs kind. It's easy to say that Google is collecting too much data, but the basic premise of personalizing searches and selling ads is relatively unobjectionable to most people. Once you've accepted that selling counterfeit goods and other broadly anti-competitive practices are A-OK and part of your core business model, you've crossed a line where it's no longer really a matter of simply doing "less" of it.
- apersona 8y ago
  How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? It seems like a hard problem - eBay suffered from this too for their goods,Yelp with reviews. I doubt it's just a "I don't care" kind of thing.
  - ckastner 8y ago
    > How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product. Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline fraud.
    - 394549 8y ago
      > No idea what do to about the reviews, They need to patrol the sources for fake reviews (facebook groups, etc) and perform sting operations to catch the sellers who solicit them. It shouldn't be too hard, a simple Facebook search finds hundreds of groups and thousands of solicitations. Once you identify a seller that does this, you ban them from Amazon, as well as everyone who's given their products a fake review (for the reviewers, it should probably be a three strikes thing before they're banned, since a lot of them seem to just like free stuff). > but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product. > Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline fraud. I'd say the second step is to roll back many of Amazon's practices that make counterfeiting harder to detect, for instance how they can commingle inventory between sellers (if those sellers weren't careful when they made their listing). That makes it impossible for the sellers to have meaningful reputation scores, since bad-actors can sell their counterfeits through honest-actor storefronts (and vice versa). The third step is to implement better supply chain management and vetting of suppliers. Not everyone should be able to set up a marketplace store and sell any product. There needs to be effective vetting of sellers and it should be hard enough to setup a marketplace account they can't just create a new one when their last one is banned. There should also be especially stringent vetting around listings for frequently fake and counterfeit products, like SD cards. The fourth step is to implement active counterfeit and fake product detection (through test purchases). If a particular item is too often fake or counterfeited, Amazon should ban it from the marketplace and only sell inventory directly sourced from the original manufacturer. None of these things should be too hard for a company with Amazon's resources to effectively implement. The fact that it hasn't says that these problems aren't a priority for it.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  The counterfeit detection problem is one of the hardest problems that exists, fake branded products is much easier to solve, but at least in the world of fashion, the only proven way to detect fakes has been through leveraging teams of experts to inspect each item individually.
m3kw9 8y ago
Xyz company is not your friend. Ok, like we didn’t know they are trying to make money off the other side? When is the last time a company trying to make a profit is our friend?
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  any time where they are trying to make a profit by selling you something you want?
  - etatoby 8y ago
    Bingo. Why are so many people willing to throw away the baby (capitalism) with the dirty bathwater (monopolies and others crony deviations.)
    - 2bitmachine 8y ago
      Because Capitalism historically always evolves into monopolies and crony deviations? Along the way it also typically subverts and destroys democracy.
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      One answer would be that with improved communication and improved transportation the relative advantage of monopolies has become intolerably large.
    - na85 8y ago
      To use your analogy, it's not clear to me that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) can be a net-positive? Because any other aspect of our current formation of capitalism is negotiable. We can regulate to counteract negative corporate behaviours (though that has its own set of issues) so that companies are working for the benefit of the populace.
intopieces 8y ago
Making money and wanting to make great products are not mutually exclusive. Nor does one necessarily follow the other. The latter does depend on the former, quiet often, though.
moistoreos 8y ago
Empires can fall. They just take consumer behavior to change.
- chooseaname 8y ago
  Right, but we're still on the wrong side of the hill for now.
- laumars 8y ago
  Theoretically yes. However history has proven that's no trivial feat. It can take decades and often requires a huge shift in the way people use technology too.
gbersac 8y ago
Welcome to capitalism. People are not in business to be nice, but to make money. Their behaviour is expected and the same as most private actors.
- laumars 8y ago
  The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Plenty of businesses pride themselves on customer satisfaction with the knowledge that happy customers are frequent customers. The problem is the American free market model encourages market capture through "less noble" (for want a better description) means; it encourages monopolies and discourages regulation nor oversight thus allowing businesses to ignore all other consumer, social and even ecological concerns. In an ideal world market forces would filter out that bad from the good but we've seen time and time again that you simply cannot trust businesses to do "the right thing" - and why should we, they're a business not a social club! But the fact remains it gets increasingly hard to compete in any market when your competitor has comparatively infinite resources and zero scruples. That results in a net less for consumers and society in the more general sense too. At least here in the Europe we have the EU who are willing to challenge companies who are proven to overstep. I'm not saying the EU get it right all of the time but better that than giving businesses free reign to do whatever the hell they like. Anyhow, I've waffled on about a fair few points so to get back on topic: You do businesses who are customer-focused. The problem is they usually get overshadowed by the businesses that have learned to play the game better / more aggressively.
hef19898 8y ago
In my opinion that changed with the fire phone debacle. Arguably that was Jeffs baby, when it tanked (as far as I know) most of the developer team left. And the apparently told Jeff that some stuff he wanted in the phone was bad idea. So, that would go against thr leadership principles of vocally self-critical and earn trust. Not that it harmed stock performance, but it changed something, somehow. Not sure what, so.
- zorbadgreek 8y ago
  Most people on the team did not leave. A lot of the people who worked on Fire Phone went to other projects inside the company including Amazon Go.
carapace 8y ago
Bezos is going to space. He's ruthless as hell but he dosen't force anyone to work for him, he doesn't force anyone to use his service. Maybe, just maybe, he's that man who sold the Moon.
sh87 8y ago
> Bezos is out to make an empire, everything else comes second. Amazon investors just got a hard-on reading this.

by tfha 8y ago

ckastner 8y ago

> Bezos is out to make an empire, everything else comes second. I share this sentiment. For comparison, I believe the amount of and methods with which Google collects data to be wrong, but I also believe that they don't believe they are doing something (outright) wrong. Amazon, however, must know that they have a counterfeit goods problem, but it seems that they couldn't care less about it. Same applies to gaming the review system.

amelius 8y ago
> but I also believe that they don't believe they are doing something (outright) wrong. With so many engineers working at Google, someone there should be thinking they are doing something wrong. Right? Or are you more thinking of a collective conscious of some kind?
- ckastner 8y ago
  I mostly meant upper management, where strategic and policy decisions are made; where the direction a company is going is determined. Not that non-management is irrelevant. It's just less relevant. Because what is OK or not OK is ultimately decided at the very top. For example, in the not-so-recent-past, Uber was rocked with scandals on a weekly basis. The first step to fix this was to find a new CEO.
  - james-mcelwain 8y ago
    It's also a matter of degree vs kind. It's easy to say that Google is collecting too much data, but the basic premise of personalizing searches and selling ads is relatively unobjectionable to most people. Once you've accepted that selling counterfeit goods and other broadly anti-competitive practices are A-OK and part of your core business model, you've crossed a line where it's no longer really a matter of simply doing "less" of it.
apersona 8y ago
How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? It seems like a hard problem - eBay suffered from this too for their goods,Yelp with reviews. I doubt it's just a "I don't care" kind of thing.
- ckastner 8y ago
  > How would you solve the counterfeit goods and preventing people from gaming the review system problems? No idea what do to about the reviews, but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product. Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline fraud.
  - 394549 8y ago
    > No idea what do to about the reviews, They need to patrol the sources for fake reviews (facebook groups, etc) and perform sting operations to catch the sellers who solicit them. It shouldn't be too hard, a simple Facebook search finds hundreds of groups and thousands of solicitations. Once you identify a seller that does this, you ban them from Amazon, as well as everyone who's given their products a fake review (for the reviewers, it should probably be a three strikes thing before they're banned, since a lot of them seem to just like free stuff). > but the first step to the counterfeit goods problem is simple: once you've received X complaints about a counterfeit product, stop selling the product. > Continuing to sell a product for which there are numerous and credible indications that they are counterfeit is borderline fraud. I'd say the second step is to roll back many of Amazon's practices that make counterfeiting harder to detect, for instance how they can commingle inventory between sellers (if those sellers weren't careful when they made their listing). That makes it impossible for the sellers to have meaningful reputation scores, since bad-actors can sell their counterfeits through honest-actor storefronts (and vice versa). The third step is to implement better supply chain management and vetting of suppliers. Not everyone should be able to set up a marketplace store and sell any product. There needs to be effective vetting of sellers and it should be hard enough to setup a marketplace account they can't just create a new one when their last one is banned. There should also be especially stringent vetting around listings for frequently fake and counterfeit products, like SD cards. The fourth step is to implement active counterfeit and fake product detection (through test purchases). If a particular item is too often fake or counterfeited, Amazon should ban it from the marketplace and only sell inventory directly sourced from the original manufacturer. None of these things should be too hard for a company with Amazon's resources to effectively implement. The fact that it hasn't says that these problems aren't a priority for it.
zjaffee 8y ago
The counterfeit detection problem is one of the hardest problems that exists, fake branded products is much easier to solve, but at least in the world of fashion, the only proven way to detect fakes has been through leveraging teams of experts to inspect each item individually.

m3kw9 8y ago

Xyz company is not your friend. Ok, like we didn’t know they are trying to make money off the other side? When is the last time a company trying to make a profit is our friend?

beaconstudios 8y ago
any time where they are trying to make a profit by selling you something you want?
- etatoby 8y ago
  Bingo. Why are so many people willing to throw away the baby (capitalism) with the dirty bathwater (monopolies and others crony deviations.)
  - 2bitmachine 8y ago
    Because Capitalism historically always evolves into monopolies and crony deviations? Along the way it also typically subverts and destroys democracy.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    One answer would be that with improved communication and improved transportation the relative advantage of monopolies has become intolerably large.
  - na85 8y ago
    To use your analogy, it's not clear to me that one can have the baby without it spoiling the bathwater.
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      you don't think people exchanging goods and services using money as an intermediate exchange (aka capitalism) can be a net-positive? Because any other aspect of our current formation of capitalism is negotiable. We can regulate to counteract negative corporate behaviours (though that has its own set of issues) so that companies are working for the benefit of the populace.

intopieces 8y ago

Making money and wanting to make great products are not mutually exclusive. Nor does one necessarily follow the other. The latter does depend on the former, quiet often, though.

moistoreos 8y ago

Empires can fall. They just take consumer behavior to change.

chooseaname 8y ago
Right, but we're still on the wrong side of the hill for now.
laumars 8y ago
Theoretically yes. However history has proven that's no trivial feat. It can take decades and often requires a huge shift in the way people use technology too.

gbersac 8y ago

Welcome to capitalism. People are not in business to be nice, but to make money. Their behaviour is expected and the same as most private actors.

laumars 8y ago
The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Plenty of businesses pride themselves on customer satisfaction with the knowledge that happy customers are frequent customers. The problem is the American free market model encourages market capture through "less noble" (for want a better description) means; it encourages monopolies and discourages regulation nor oversight thus allowing businesses to ignore all other consumer, social and even ecological concerns. In an ideal world market forces would filter out that bad from the good but we've seen time and time again that you simply cannot trust businesses to do "the right thing" - and why should we, they're a business not a social club! But the fact remains it gets increasingly hard to compete in any market when your competitor has comparatively infinite resources and zero scruples. That results in a net less for consumers and society in the more general sense too. At least here in the Europe we have the EU who are willing to challenge companies who are proven to overstep. I'm not saying the EU get it right all of the time but better that than giving businesses free reign to do whatever the hell they like. Anyhow, I've waffled on about a fair few points so to get back on topic: You do businesses who are customer-focused. The problem is they usually get overshadowed by the businesses that have learned to play the game better / more aggressively.

hef19898 8y ago

In my opinion that changed with the fire phone debacle. Arguably that was Jeffs baby, when it tanked (as far as I know) most of the developer team left. And the apparently told Jeff that some stuff he wanted in the phone was bad idea. So, that would go against thr leadership principles of vocally self-critical and earn trust. Not that it harmed stock performance, but it changed something, somehow. Not sure what, so.

zorbadgreek 8y ago
Most people on the team did not leave. A lot of the people who worked on Fire Phone went to other projects inside the company including Amazon Go.

carapace 8y ago

Bezos is going to space. He's ruthless as hell but he dosen't force anyone to work for him, he doesn't force anyone to use his service. Maybe, just maybe, he's that man who sold the Moon.

sh87 8y ago

> Bezos is out to make an empire, everything else comes second. Amazon investors just got a hard-on reading this.