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The flagship product is the logistical operation and it is pretty damn far from crappy. I can't speak for everywhere, but at least in most parts of the US, they

The flagship product is the logistical operation and it is pretty damn far from crappy. I can't speak for everywhere, but at least in most parts of the US, they can get you damn near anything on the same day. For products where you already know what you want in terms of brand, seller, and quantity, or regular recurring purchases of staple goods (cat litter, paper towels, dish soap, anything undifferentiated that you need to repeatedly purchase), even groceries now thanks to buying Whole Foods (provided you have the upscale price point that makes you willing to shop there to begin with), it's about as perfect an interface as you could hope for. Find and click in under a minute and you can probably have most goods in a few hours, at most next day. If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know nothing about. I'm looking through my last several months of purchases here, and I'm seeing a bunch of automotive cleaning fluids, mostly from Adam's, polishing compounds and a respirator from 3M, a bunch of power tools from DeWalt, a Bose speaker. Known brands from reputable sellers, every item what I wanted and it got here quickly. In some cases, I either tried to or had to purchase elsewhere. For instance, Amazon had most of the DeWalt power tools I wanted, but was out of stock on rotary polishers, so I had to get it from some place called Acme Tools, and it took a week and a half. Amazon got me everything the next day. (I had a bunch of stuff stolen from my garage is why I needed all this at around the same time.) I tried to purchase the Bose speaker from Best Buy since I have one a five minute drive from me, and their website claimed it was in stock and I could pick it up the same day, but then right before the pick up window, they texted me to inform me they didn't actually have it and wouldn't for another week. So I canceled the order, went on Amazon, and they had free same day delivery. It should be obvious that anything that goes from not existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the world is probably offering value somehow.

wronglyprepaid 4y ago
> It should be obvious that anything that goes from not existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the world is probably offering value somehow. That is very true, I think probably from the outside looking in it was hard to see what value they were offering. But from the responses here I think I got a better picture of what people get out of it that makes it the best choice for them most of the time.
notriddle 4y ago
> If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know nothing about. First of all, HN is full of entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs. A storefront that can't sell anything that doesn't have a good reputation outside the storefront is bad for small businesses, because nobody is willing to try anything new. A major part of the value proposition of a storefront is that the owners will vet the products they sell for a minimum standard of quality: it's not necessarily great, because greatness is subjective, but the food shouldn't poison you[1] and the AC/DC power converters shouldn't catch fire. The second problem is that sellers will pass off counterfeit goods as being from major manufacturers when they aren't. I know I'm falling for selection bias, since I've probably bought counterfeit goods without knowing it, but that's not even really the point. The point is that I've bought stuff on Amazon that just didn't work, sold in packaging that's identical to stuff I've bought before that did work. I knew they were counterfeit and not just duds because the actual product didn't have the branding on it that genuine ones always have. [1]: Well, okay, it might poison you if you have a special allergy. But anything with the common allergens like gluten or lactose will have labels.

wronglyprepaid 4y ago

> It should be obvious that anything that goes from not existing 25 years ago to top five market cap company in the world is probably offering value somehow. That is very true, I think probably from the outside looking in it was hard to see what value they were offering. But from the responses here I think I got a better picture of what people get out of it that makes it the best choice for them most of the time.

notriddle 4y ago

> If you're trying to discover new products of unknown quality and reputation, then it's not so good. For whatever reason, that seems to be the use case people focus on when criticizing Amazon on Hacker News, but I don't see how that can possibly be the dominant use case. Most of what people ever buy is not something brand new to them that they know nothing about. First of all, HN is full of entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs. A storefront that can't sell anything that doesn't have a good reputation outside the storefront is bad for small businesses, because nobody is willing to try anything new. A major part of the value proposition of a storefront is that the owners will vet the products they sell for a minimum standard of quality: it's not necessarily great, because greatness is subjective, but the food shouldn't poison you[1] and the AC/DC power converters shouldn't catch fire. The second problem is that sellers will pass off counterfeit goods as being from major manufacturers when they aren't. I know I'm falling for selection bias, since I've probably bought counterfeit goods without knowing it, but that's not even really the point. The point is that I've bought stuff on Amazon that just didn't work, sold in packaging that's identical to stuff I've bought before that did work. I knew they were counterfeit and not just duds because the actual product didn't have the branding on it that genuine ones always have. [1]: Well, okay, it might poison you if you have a special allergy. But anything with the common allergens like gluten or lactose will have labels.