4 ms·

I always wonder in these kinds of articles how many people are doing this. The problem is that it is so sensationalized, that it could be that there are 10 peop

I always wonder in these kinds of articles how many people are doing this. The problem is that it is so sensationalized, that it could be that there are 10 people doing this, and it's not really a big deal. Or it could be that 50% of the people doing this work, do this. For example, the article says that it reviewed photos and videos of phones near Whole Foods and Amazon delivery stations. Okay, so how many phones did they find? How many people do they have personal knowledge doing this? I've noticed that a lot of news articles tend to take a few examples of something outrageous, but never say anything about how widespread the practice is. I find it hard to be outraged or care unless there is some quantification of the problem. In any system, people will find a way to cheat. Amazon is aware and maybe they are working on a way to fix this, but it's not clear Amazon has had much time to figure out what to do. Even if you think Amazon is evil and doesn't care, it takes time to figure out how to defeat this. Maybe they won't care, but at least give them some time to respond.

charliemil4 6y ago
"The public tends to respond to precedence and superlatives" - E.Musk
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> I've noticed that a lot of news articles tend to take a few examples of something outrageous, but never say anything about how widespread the practice is. That's entirely on purpose. Most of such "outrageous" things, including some hot political topics, wouldn't look nearly as outrageous if it were compared against the baseline. So necessary information is not included. Actually informing people "weakens the story".
- Talanes 6y ago
  Don't underestimate the role of laziness. It's much less work to just find a localized instance of something, and then report it as a phenomenon vs. doing the actual in-the-weeds journalism in order to get a widespread view of the topic.
Reedx 6y ago
> The problem is that it is so sensationalized, that it could be that there are 10 people doing this, and it's not really a big deal. That's basically standard practice now. Find a couple outraged Tweets, present as though it represents the majority.

charliemil4 6y ago

"The public tends to respond to precedence and superlatives" - E.Musk

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> I've noticed that a lot of news articles tend to take a few examples of something outrageous, but never say anything about how widespread the practice is. That's entirely on purpose. Most of such "outrageous" things, including some hot political topics, wouldn't look nearly as outrageous if it were compared against the baseline. So necessary information is not included. Actually informing people "weakens the story".

Talanes 6y ago
Don't underestimate the role of laziness. It's much less work to just find a localized instance of something, and then report it as a phenomenon vs. doing the actual in-the-weeds journalism in order to get a widespread view of the topic.

Reedx 6y ago

> The problem is that it is so sensationalized, that it could be that there are 10 people doing this, and it's not really a big deal. That's basically standard practice now. Find a couple outraged Tweets, present as though it represents the majority.