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What is "The Amazon experience"? Ads being served as the first few rows of results? A review system that cannot be trusted? The same item listed multiple times

What is "The Amazon experience"? Ads being served as the first few rows of results? A review system that cannot be trusted? The same item listed multiple times by different sellers? Extreme price variance when choosing different colors and sizes?

bluGill 8y ago
The experience today is not what made them great in the past. 10 years ago the negatives you list didn't exist.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Perhaps all of these too big to be good utility services- Amazon, Google, Facebook, even Apple should just offer “classic” slimmed down versions of their previous offerings, for a paid subscription in the case of the online services.
  - glenneroo 8y ago
    How would this help eliminate any of the current issues? Why would giving them money and/or building a slimmed-down version reduce fake reviews, fake articles, ads as search results, et al?
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      Use the subscription fees to cover up the lack of search result ads, to pay for better policing of fake reviews, moderating, etc.
simias 8y ago
That's a relatively decent development AFAIK. 10 years ago I mostly trusted results and reviews. I suppose it's getting a lot worse lately because 1/ Amazon being hugely successful means that it's a prime target for advertisers and scammers and 2/ Amazon being hugely successful means that they have less of an incentive to solve the issue now than they did back then.
hrktb 8y ago
These are all valid point. I’d add to that bad knock off items mixed with the real ones. But most of these issues are plaguing every other major site. Ads that stick with you for days and days whatever site you look at are becoming the norm. No ec site review system can be trusted in my opinion, they are usually way to easy to game. For anything that actually matters reputable and dedicated review sites end up to be the most useful. Different sellers and different price are fine to me, it actually helps to mitigate the knock off issues in my experience. All in all amazon has degraded a lot in these aspects, but I feel the whole industry took the dive and don’t see competing retailers coming up with fresh ideas.

bluGill 8y ago

The experience today is not what made them great in the past. 10 years ago the negatives you list didn't exist.

Apocryphon 8y ago
Perhaps all of these too big to be good utility services- Amazon, Google, Facebook, even Apple should just offer “classic” slimmed down versions of their previous offerings, for a paid subscription in the case of the online services.
- glenneroo 8y ago
  How would this help eliminate any of the current issues? Why would giving them money and/or building a slimmed-down version reduce fake reviews, fake articles, ads as search results, et al?
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Use the subscription fees to cover up the lack of search result ads, to pay for better policing of fake reviews, moderating, etc.

simias 8y ago

That's a relatively decent development AFAIK. 10 years ago I mostly trusted results and reviews. I suppose it's getting a lot worse lately because 1/ Amazon being hugely successful means that it's a prime target for advertisers and scammers and 2/ Amazon being hugely successful means that they have less of an incentive to solve the issue now than they did back then.

hrktb 8y ago

These are all valid point. I’d add to that bad knock off items mixed with the real ones. But most of these issues are plaguing every other major site. Ads that stick with you for days and days whatever site you look at are becoming the norm. No ec site review system can be trusted in my opinion, they are usually way to easy to game. For anything that actually matters reputable and dedicated review sites end up to be the most useful. Different sellers and different price are fine to me, it actually helps to mitigate the knock off issues in my experience. All in all amazon has degraded a lot in these aspects, but I feel the whole industry took the dive and don’t see competing retailers coming up with fresh ideas.