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The fact that you’re trying to use Amazon to convince others that its somehow a negative to use web scrapers is just sad. I’m sure they don’t like it, and that’

The fact that you’re trying to use Amazon to convince others that its somehow a negative to use web scrapers is just sad. I’m sure they don’t like it, and that’s in part of why I like them. Amazon is inherently anti-consumer, and uses every single thing it can to advertise to and/or profit off of you. Their 1984-inspired “security” and home automation systems, their app/website, their policies are all meant to take your money. Which is why web scrapers like CamelCamelCamel are good, because with all of this anti-consumer garbage Amazon shoves at you, you have the power to turn the tables and pick up what you need at the price you want. The only time I’ve heard scrapers/indexers being a problem is Bing was terrorizing someone’s website, so they just banned every Google/Bing/Yahoo IP. A problem that $1.3T companies don’t have. You can claim that “its not theft because it’s copying” is inadequate, but I would say the same about your own argument. Because there is no good argument against scraping data. It’s the only way to have a free Internet.

fsckboy 3y ago
I said I was not making an argument about scraping, just that "copying doesn't deprive anyone else" does not capture the pain point the people building websites complain about. the rest of what you wrote is a combination of marxism--why can't society cooperate to meet my needs!?--and laissez-faire capitalism--bastards think they can use technology against me, I'll use it against them--neither of which either is a good way to run an economy.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  How the Hell did you get two wildly different economic beliefs from what I wrote? And is that meant to be some sort of “gotcha”?
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    I got it the same place you got your long discursive answer to my only point, where I was simply saying "the copying is not theft because you still have your copy" argument is not adequate to explain the disagreement over scraping. don't worry, we don't "gotcha" here, we got you, brother!

fsckboy 3y ago

I said I was not making an argument about scraping, just that "copying doesn't deprive anyone else" does not capture the pain point the people building websites complain about. the rest of what you wrote is a combination of marxism--why can't society cooperate to meet my needs!?--and laissez-faire capitalism--bastards think they can use technology against me, I'll use it against them--neither of which either is a good way to run an economy.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago
How the Hell did you get two wildly different economic beliefs from what I wrote? And is that meant to be some sort of “gotcha”?
- fsckboy 3y ago
  I got it the same place you got your long discursive answer to my only point, where I was simply saying "the copying is not theft because you still have your copy" argument is not adequate to explain the disagreement over scraping. don't worry, we don't "gotcha" here, we got you, brother!