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> If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively. I tried it: - on the website from the home page - in the Ki

> If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively. I tried it: - on the website from the home page - in the Kindle category - on my Kindle directly All I got was books by Dickens. There was the usual "sponsored" items but they are explicitly displayed as it. I don't know if it's a country issue, but I don't have the same experience as you. Furthermore, I read regularly on HN comments about how bad Amazon became, selling fake products, taking forever to send packages... Again, maybe a country issue, but here in France my experience is the same as it was ten years ago. It's even a bit better thanks to the number of Lockers that are available near my flat or my office and the fact that more and more refurbished products are offered.

ggm 1y ago
I just did it on Web and got Emily Bronte, and Oscar Wilde as well as Dickens. I did it for "Philip kerr" and I get Richard wake and mark oulton. John le carre and I get Andrew Brown. These are "in the style of" clone authors.
- wiether 1y ago
  I can see how annoying your experience must be in that case! I don't know what (who?) caused this, but I'm certain that I don't want to have the same experience...
  - notrealyme123 1y ago
    The Amazon-Basic version of Charles Dickens
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    I think we shouldn't underestimate how much the experience differs due to black box machine learning arbitrarily putting users in different groups.
asimpletune 1y ago
One explanation is this is the standard rollout of Amazon. First they undercut all the local options, and then once the population embraces them they flip the switch. Amazon has always been about cash flow over profits. So they don’t really need to make money if that’s not yet one of the goals.
- ggm 1y ago
  Aside from A/B testing, there may be insufficient profit in the Francophonie, to justify stuffing the shop front with dreck. This is not an insult, it's an upside of not being monoglot anglophone.
vladvasiliu 1y ago
I'm in France, too. I don't know about fake products, I rarely buy "premium" stuff on Amazon. However, a few months ago I received a bag sold as new which had clearly been used, since I found a face mask and a random receipt in one of the pockets.
lazyasciiart 1y ago
If shitty Amazon experiences went from 0.1% of customers to 1% of customers, then almost everyone still has a good experience - but now people are much more likely to be at least within anecdote range of someone who has a bad experience.
blincoln 1y ago
In my experience, the Amazon search feature is very unpredictable and confusing. E.g. if I search for "<film or television series> blu ray" (no quotes), I will usually get only listings for foreign imports of the title sold by third parties, even when Amazon carries the item. If I want to get the US release in my search results, I have to leave out the "blu ray" string, which makes the search results less useful if Amazon carries a lot of non-BD versions of the title and I am looking for it specifically in that format. Some items will be hidden when searching from Amazon itself, but can be ordered by doing the same search on DuckDuckGo or Google and finding a direct link to the product page. TLDR: it's difficult to do a fair comparison between users' experiences, because their search feature (like so many sites - I'm looking at you, Etsy!) is completely broken.

ggm 1y ago

I just did it on Web and got Emily Bronte, and Oscar Wilde as well as Dickens. I did it for "Philip kerr" and I get Richard wake and mark oulton. John le carre and I get Andrew Brown. These are "in the style of" clone authors.

wiether 1y ago
I can see how annoying your experience must be in that case! I don't know what (who?) caused this, but I'm certain that I don't want to have the same experience...
- notrealyme123 1y ago
  The Amazon-Basic version of Charles Dickens
- rightbyte 1y ago
  I think we shouldn't underestimate how much the experience differs due to black box machine learning arbitrarily putting users in different groups.

asimpletune 1y ago

One explanation is this is the standard rollout of Amazon. First they undercut all the local options, and then once the population embraces them they flip the switch. Amazon has always been about cash flow over profits. So they don’t really need to make money if that’s not yet one of the goals.

ggm 1y ago
Aside from A/B testing, there may be insufficient profit in the Francophonie, to justify stuffing the shop front with dreck. This is not an insult, it's an upside of not being monoglot anglophone.

vladvasiliu 1y ago

I'm in France, too. I don't know about fake products, I rarely buy "premium" stuff on Amazon. However, a few months ago I received a bag sold as new which had clearly been used, since I found a face mask and a random receipt in one of the pockets.

lazyasciiart 1y ago

If shitty Amazon experiences went from 0.1% of customers to 1% of customers, then almost everyone still has a good experience - but now people are much more likely to be at least within anecdote range of someone who has a bad experience.

blincoln 1y ago

In my experience, the Amazon search feature is very unpredictable and confusing. E.g. if I search for "<film or television series> blu ray" (no quotes), I will usually get only listings for foreign imports of the title sold by third parties, even when Amazon carries the item. If I want to get the US release in my search results, I have to leave out the "blu ray" string, which makes the search results less useful if Amazon carries a lot of non-BD versions of the title and I am looking for it specifically in that format. Some items will be hidden when searching from Amazon itself, but can be ordered by doing the same search on DuckDuckGo or Google and finding a direct link to the product page. TLDR: it's difficult to do a fair comparison between users' experiences, because their search feature (like so many sites - I'm looking at you, Etsy!) is completely broken.