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That’s assuming those are the alternatives. If the alternative is instead to show you something you’ve already ordered or nothing, the odds of you ordering agai
by afthonos 8y ago
That’s assuming those are the alternatives. If the alternative is instead to show you something you’ve already ordered or nothing, the odds of you ordering again if you see the thing you’ve ordered already are small, but nonzero.
- bduerst 8y agoThat's a false dichotomy. There's a number of things they can show you, not just reorder or nothing. In a perfect world for targeting sales, they will predict and show you exactly what it is you want to buy next. Repurchasing is just a very lazy way of predicting what you'll buy next.
- ojilles 8y agoI'm not afthonos, but I think his/her point is that they may not be able to predict exactly what it is you want to buy. (I find it super annoying, too; but that doesn't mean folks have figured out purchase reco's at scale)
- coltonv 8y agoIf the chance I'm going to buy something that I've already bought again is close to 0, and it's not smart enough to find anything else for me that it thinks I should buy, then logically it should show me random things. That way I'm training the algorithm for them and maybe I'll find something I want.
- afthonos 8y agoLogically, they will show you whatever is most likely to generate revenue (possibly amortized over time). As long as the probability of you reordering is higher than that if you buying a random item out of millions (and those odds are tiny to begin with), the logical thing to do is to show you the item you already ordered.