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I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platfor
by erentz 7y ago
I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platform cake and eat it's publisher cake at the same time. (Sorry for the bad spin on that phrase there.)
One important part of our solution here has to be that we force these companies to take a position one way or the other. So in Amazon's case it would need to decide - am I a platform for companies to set up there own online shop and provide fulfillment services to? Or am I myself the online shop?
In the later case they become responsible for product, like any business. In the former, they aren't. But in the former they now need to act as just a platform and not provide all the branding that makes it look like you're buying from Amazon. So they'd be more akin to Shopify or something I suppose. Every fly by night shop that wants to set up needs to set up its own branding and that way brand reliability and recognition still works and items are no longer commingled.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- empath75 7y agoI think you solve it by making amazon directly liable for fraud on their platform. They’d clean up the problem pretty quickly after losing a few billion dollars in lawsuits.
- quickthrowman 7y agoHow do you convince Congress to pass that legislation when there’s lots of money on the other side lobbying for the status quo?
- nostromo 7y agoThere's a lot of anti-tech energy on the left lately. And Bezos painted a target on his back by getting into Twitter feuds with Trump. He's also now synonymous with the Washington Post which has never met a Republican they liked. This all adds up to a company nobody seems to like in DC. If there's any company I could see getting a Washington smackdown soon, it's Amazon.
- disappearance 7y agoThere is no political solution until politics is clean. Left, right, whatever. It’s all mood until then.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- xxpor 7y ago>He's also now synonymous with the Washington Post which has never met a Republican they liked. Have you ever actually read the WaPo editorial page?
- nostromo 7y agoI’m talking about their reporting, not their editorials — which, no, I don’t regularly read. Although it’s worth noting they’ve not once endorsed a Republican for president, ever. They serve DC, so I’m not surprised or upset they have a bias — but we shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist either. Obviously owning a liberal newspaper doesn’t win Bezos any points on the right, which became obvious with Trump supposedly pressuring the Pentagon not to use AWS.
- birdyrooster 7y agoBy having a President that holds rallies on getting these issues passed and sets a agenda for the people to vote for congresspeople who support consumer protection laws like these. This is where the office of the Presidency really has impact, it can direct the attention of millions of people to exert great pressure on its target.
- gdulli 7y agoHypothetically, what if the executive branch also ever happened to be nonfunctional?
- smileysteve 7y agoThere is already legislation that should give the FTC teeth to fine or shutdown Amazon based on counterfeit goods, especially if the branding is illegitimate.
- gpm 7y agoI think they should be liable, but I think even just enforcing the existing laws without making them liable would put a stop to it. Just have the police start tracking down what warehouses counterfeit items came from, and getting search warrants to search them. Apart from the fact that this would directly reduce the number of counterfeit's... repeatedly shutting down warehouses for searches would kill Amazon's bottom line. Cleaning up after the police would kill Amazon's bottom line. Etc. It's not exactly justice, but it is damn effective. You can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride and all that.
- tracer4201 7y agoDisclaimer: I don’t own amazon directly but do own funds where Amazon is a significant chunk. I don’t agree with this kind of regulation. It’s simply not the governments role to decide. You as a seller are not forced to sell on Amazon. I say that as the spouse of a seller who owns a store on EBay that’s continued to be successful. We had a bad experience selling on Amazon and are better off without them. Of course that’s just our experience but I’m not convinced Amazon is a monopoly here. I do think Amazon needs to be held liable for fake products and whatever damage they cause its customers. Amazon simply selling goods with no liability of fraudulent items is a disgrace, and I don’t think they will change until we ram some regulation down their throat.
- 0xffff2 7y agoSerious question: What is the point of a “disclaimer” that applies to nearly everyone with a retirement account?
- leetcrew 7y ago> I do think Amazon needs to be held liable for fake products and whatever damage they cause its customers. what would this look like? they already have a pretty generous return policy. they pay the return shipping and return the funds as soon as the package ships. I'm not thrilled with the status quo of playing fraud roulette every time I order something, but the worst thing that's ever happened to me is having to wait a couple extra days for the genuine item.
- the_snooze 7y ago>I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. In both cases you have a company that wants to both have it's platform cake and eat it's publisher cake at the same time. (Sorry for the bad spin on that phrase there.) These companies innovate by showing off a layer of whiz-bang techy goodness so people don't notice that they've simply externalized all the responsibility and internalized all the profits.
- jka 7y agoIt also wouldn't be surprising to learn that they identify customers (buyers) who have louder voices and more social influence, and shield those people from fakes -- or provide rewards to mollify them when they do report problems.
- gowld 7y agoThat’s intractable. They can’t selectively shield everyone the influencer retweets from fakes. They didn’t even shield a wirecutter , one of their largest affiliate referrers.
- amylene 7y agoWait, do you really believe that amazons retail business has had little or no significant innovation besides whiz bang tech goodness? I’m guessing you were exaggerating to make a more strong sounding statement, but if you meant it, then I strongly disagree.
- pas 7y agoWhat exactly are they adding in value compared to any regular webshop? It's just as incomprehensibly bad as the standard run of the mill default PrestaShop. At least Shopify is a real platform you can build stuff on. Amazon is just this giant bullying machine. The Dalek of retail.
- robteix 7y agoSuper fast and cheap shipping is a big deal. Easy returns. I have several issues with Amazon the company, but any time I buy something only from any other vendor I'm reminded of what makes Amazon different.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago> I see the Amazon fake products problem as related to the social network fake news problem. Brought it up elsewhere[0], but I think you're right in more than one way. Beyond publisher vs. platform issue, fake news are the digital equivalent to counterfeiting; they're to news - and in general, to information media[1] - what Amazon counterfeits are to physical products. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22399726 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22399726 [1] - Which include all digital media and most physical books.
- pmart123 7y agoI agree from in some capacity in the growth or greed to increase DAU and engagement for social networks is similar to Amazon’s desire to grow SKUs and purchase volume. Amazon mixing SKUs maybe relates to when press piggy backs off of the same initial headline as it creates distrust and makes people question the quality of the product. There’s a big difference though. Social media allows many individual voices, and much like the printing press, allows previously unheard voices to be heard and to have reach. Therefore, the world’s expert can call out a journalist for being wrong immediately, making it seem like “fake news” is more common than it was previously. Amazon is actually causing distrust around product quality when there wasn’t any before. Consumers may have trusted Colgate’s toothpaste, but if it isn’t actually Colgate’s toothpaste, yet it poisons someone, it becomes Colgate’s problem too. This would be like Facebook or Twitter allowing any account to adopt a WSJ or NyTimes verified badge, one of those accounts publishes fake news, and then the paper itself has a problem too.
- JKCalhoun 7y agoYeah, been going to AliExpress more and more. If Amazon is going to a platform for other companies, I'll go with the cheapest one....
- ajmurmann 7y agoJust stopping the insane co-mingling of products from different sellers would go such a long way. The co-mingling is in essence destroying accountability and evidence!
- dbcurtis 7y agoAmazon is simply the worlds largest fence for counterfeit goods, and should be treated as such. If your local pawn shop did what Amazon does, the owners would take a ride in a black-and-white cab.