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I had to click through more than 100 links to download all the data, how can this be acceptable? Specially coming from Amazon. How hard is it for them to create

by y04nn 5y ago

I had to click through more than 100 links to download all the data, how can this be acceptable? Specially coming from Amazon. How hard is it for them to create an archive with all the data? This is ridiculous, I can't imagine how was the meeting when they decided to produce purposefully such garbage UX.

lrem 5y ago
I'm not sure "an archive with all the data" is what you really want either. At some point you'll hit the limit of how much data does your filesystem allow in one file. Not sure if your browser is that good at resuming failed downloads too.
- yencabulator 5y ago
  Google Takeout lets you split into multiple zips based on size. Amazon's take on this is just willfully evil.
MaxGanzII 5y ago
Exactly the problem I had. It would take Amazon almost no effort to make a single archive with all those files in. I cannot help but view this as deliberate obstruction.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
Here's a picture of the UI for the download, with 123 different "Download" buttons. https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1503848290193862658 https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1503848290193862658 I did an Amazon download too, after Amazon's subsidiary Goodreads lost all my data of 9 years. I'm grateful for how the GDPR and the CCPA mandate that companies provide data downloads. Amazon is clearly doing the bare minimum to comply. Other companies do more; Twitter's data download comes with a fully working offline Javascript app for reading and searching your tweets!
IshKebab 5y ago
Pretty sure there are a gazillion browser extensions that can do that for you. Not ideal but hardly the end of the world.
ok123456 5y ago
Can't you open up the developer tools use a css query to select all the buttons, and send a click event to them all?
- y04nn 5y ago
  Yes, it's doable in a one liner, but then you get a warning of your browser, then 100 windows asking to confirm to save the file, it still is terrible UX. And form my experience, most users are not aware of the dev console. For others that may be interested by the data you get, it is quite detailed, I would recommend to use VisiData that make it really easy to navigate inside zip files and csv the files inside (most often a single file).
- sean2 5y ago
  Yes, most commenters on HN could could, but for the general public, it's not a great interface.

by y04nn 5y ago

lrem 5y ago

I'm not sure "an archive with all the data" is what you really want either. At some point you'll hit the limit of how much data does your filesystem allow in one file. Not sure if your browser is that good at resuming failed downloads too.

yencabulator 5y ago
Google Takeout lets you split into multiple zips based on size. Amazon's take on this is just willfully evil.

MaxGanzII 5y ago

Exactly the problem I had. It would take Amazon almost no effort to make a single archive with all those files in. I cannot help but view this as deliberate obstruction.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

Here's a picture of the UI for the download, with 123 different "Download" buttons. https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1503848290193862658 https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1503848290193862658 I did an Amazon download too, after Amazon's subsidiary Goodreads lost all my data of 9 years. I'm grateful for how the GDPR and the CCPA mandate that companies provide data downloads. Amazon is clearly doing the bare minimum to comply. Other companies do more; Twitter's data download comes with a fully working offline Javascript app for reading and searching your tweets!

IshKebab 5y ago

Pretty sure there are a gazillion browser extensions that can do that for you. Not ideal but hardly the end of the world.

ok123456 5y ago

Can't you open up the developer tools use a css query to select all the buttons, and send a click event to them all?

y04nn 5y ago
Yes, it's doable in a one liner, but then you get a warning of your browser, then 100 windows asking to confirm to save the file, it still is terrible UX. And form my experience, most users are not aware of the dev console. For others that may be interested by the data you get, it is quite detailed, I would recommend to use VisiData that make it really easy to navigate inside zip files and csv the files inside (most often a single file).
sean2 5y ago
Yes, most commenters on HN could could, but for the general public, it's not a great interface.