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> As long as they refund people it's all good. If you are a business owner who bought one of these and happy with the device would you be “all good” with a ref

> As long as they refund people it's all good. If you are a business owner who bought one of these and happy with the device would you be “all good” with a refund? There are costs associated with fielding new tech. At the minimum now people have to evaluate and install some new tech/service. Possibly you are now scrambling around to get a new guard service which can keep your property secure, perhaps at an elevated rate. At the worst your property is going to be burglarised because of the lack of security coverage. This sucks. It damages Amazon’s reputation a tiny little bit. Every time anyone evaluates some tech or service they think about “will this thing go away one day and leave me in the lurch”? Doing this just increased the estimated probability of Amazon flaking out on you just a tiny bit. That means the next time they are selling something their own brand they will have just a tiny bit harder time to convince companies to be the early adopters. This kind of damage is cumulative in a non-linear way. And reputation is one of those things which are very hard to restore once you have ruined it. There is nothing “all good” about it. At best this is an “on balance of costs and benefits this course of action was less damaging for Amazon than the alternatives”.

Aeolun 2y ago
Us hearing it is probably the most damaging. After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing (number for illustration).
- krisoft 2y ago
  > Us hearing it is probably the most damaging. Without a doubt. > After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing Do you have a source for that? > number for illustration What do you mean by that? What is it illustrating? Is this some post-truth thing where you make up something and then provide a weird disclaimer to let people know that you just made up a thing out of thin air? If so, it ain’t cool.
  - lovemenot 2y ago
    They could have said "only X were sold". Or X sold, where X is a very low" number". Instead, they went with an abitrary low number and declared it to be arbitrary. const ILLUSTRATIVE_LOW_SALES = 30 Seems fine to me.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > They could have said "only X were sold". Or X sold, where X is a very low" number". They could have said "I don't think they sold too many." It would have clearly indicated that they are speculating and expressed the same information. The problem with the sentence "they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing" is that it indicates precise knowledge where there is none. Is it 30, 32, 300 or 3000? who knows? We don't even know that the 30 is the right order of magnitude. We just speculate that it must not have been too many units. How much is "not too many" for Amazon? How colossal a flop this was? > Seems fine to me. I'm afraid you are too used to the blurry edges of the "truth". We can push back against that. If someone is speculating they should say that.
      - lovemenot 2y ago
        >> If someone is speculating they should say that. I agree. This was not speculation though. It was a hypothetical, signaled by the use of "illustrative". The OP was making a point, not about that order of magnitude, they were saying that whatever the number is, Amazon knows it. Even if the OP, myself and yourself don't. It is possible they deliberately selected an implausibly low number, in order to further signal this as a hypothetical. >> I'm afraid you are too used to the blurry edges of the "truth". Please, less of the personally directed comments like this. I am trying to explain how you have misconstrued the OP's comments. It would be great if you could take us as arguing in good faith.
        krisoft 2y ago
        > I am trying to explain how you have misconstrued the OP's comments. I did not misconstrued the OP's comment. I understood them completely, and exactly as you explain them. I even understand the meta level. Saying " After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing" sounds strong, and authoritative. Even with the disclaimer it sounds stronger than saying "I think not too many people bought the robot." > they were saying that whatever the number is, Amazon knows it. It will be very hard to convince me that the original phrasing is fine by rephrasing it. It just further proves it that you can say the same thing without having to make up a number. > It would be great if you could take us as arguing in good faith. But that is the core of my argument. What I'm saying is that the form of the argument "strong and concrete statement (followed by sideway, weak disclaimer)" is manipulative. It is not a good faith form of argument. There are other ways to say the same thing and I recommend using those forms. I also accept that you are saying in good faith that you think this is fine. I truly believe that that is your opinion, and you are communicating it in good faith. There is no problem there. What I further believe is that you hold that opinion because you have encountered many cases of statements subtly manipulating, or subtly bending the truth and you have become desensitised to them. That is what I believe makes you think it is fine. Things like "asterisk illustrative image" on food packaging where in truth you will never make those ingredients look like the illustration. Or "asterisk your experience my vary" on a battery life or gas mileage claim where in real life you will never get those numbers. Or a breakfast cereal claiming it improves concentration, but when you read their studies you realise what they tested is that it improves concentration over not eating anything for breakfast at all. None of these are actual lies, but they are all meant to manipulate you into thinking something other than the truth. Our memetic landscape is saturated with these "half-truths" because they work. I don't like it. I think we would be better of if we would not let these slide. I'm seeing the same pattern in the comment we started talking about, and I called it out for that. I believe I said that in as civilised way as I can.

Aeolun 2y ago

Us hearing it is probably the most damaging. After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing (number for illustration).

krisoft 2y ago
> Us hearing it is probably the most damaging. Without a doubt. > After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing Do you have a source for that? > number for illustration What do you mean by that? What is it illustrating? Is this some post-truth thing where you make up something and then provide a weird disclaimer to let people know that you just made up a thing out of thin air? If so, it ain’t cool.
- lovemenot 2y ago
  They could have said "only X were sold". Or X sold, where X is a very low" number". Instead, they went with an abitrary low number and declared it to be arbitrary. const ILLUSTRATIVE_LOW_SALES = 30 Seems fine to me.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    > They could have said "only X were sold". Or X sold, where X is a very low" number". They could have said "I don't think they sold too many." It would have clearly indicated that they are speculating and expressed the same information. The problem with the sentence "they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing" is that it indicates precise knowledge where there is none. Is it 30, 32, 300 or 3000? who knows? We don't even know that the 30 is the right order of magnitude. We just speculate that it must not have been too many units. How much is "not too many" for Amazon? How colossal a flop this was? > Seems fine to me. I'm afraid you are too used to the blurry edges of the "truth". We can push back against that. If someone is speculating they should say that.
    - lovemenot 2y ago
      >> If someone is speculating they should say that. I agree. This was not speculation though. It was a hypothetical, signaled by the use of "illustrative". The OP was making a point, not about that order of magnitude, they were saying that whatever the number is, Amazon knows it. Even if the OP, myself and yourself don't. It is possible they deliberately selected an implausibly low number, in order to further signal this as a hypothetical. >> I'm afraid you are too used to the blurry edges of the "truth". Please, less of the personally directed comments like this. I am trying to explain how you have misconstrued the OP's comments. It would be great if you could take us as arguing in good faith.
      - krisoft 2y ago
        > I am trying to explain how you have misconstrued the OP's comments. I did not misconstrued the OP's comment. I understood them completely, and exactly as you explain them. I even understand the meta level. Saying " After all, they know only 30 people in the entire US bought the thing" sounds strong, and authoritative. Even with the disclaimer it sounds stronger than saying "I think not too many people bought the robot." > they were saying that whatever the number is, Amazon knows it. It will be very hard to convince me that the original phrasing is fine by rephrasing it. It just further proves it that you can say the same thing without having to make up a number. > It would be great if you could take us as arguing in good faith. But that is the core of my argument. What I'm saying is that the form of the argument "strong and concrete statement (followed by sideway, weak disclaimer)" is manipulative. It is not a good faith form of argument. There are other ways to say the same thing and I recommend using those forms. I also accept that you are saying in good faith that you think this is fine. I truly believe that that is your opinion, and you are communicating it in good faith. There is no problem there. What I further believe is that you hold that opinion because you have encountered many cases of statements subtly manipulating, or subtly bending the truth and you have become desensitised to them. That is what I believe makes you think it is fine. Things like "asterisk illustrative image" on food packaging where in truth you will never make those ingredients look like the illustration. Or "asterisk your experience my vary" on a battery life or gas mileage claim where in real life you will never get those numbers. Or a breakfast cereal claiming it improves concentration, but when you read their studies you realise what they tested is that it improves concentration over not eating anything for breakfast at all. None of these are actual lies, but they are all meant to manipulate you into thinking something other than the truth. Our memetic landscape is saturated with these "half-truths" because they work. I don't like it. I think we would be better of if we would not let these slide. I'm seeing the same pattern in the comment we started talking about, and I called it out for that. I believe I said that in as civilised way as I can.