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Ok, let's modify my example from "some guy" to "some guy you know" and imagine that a lot of people know this guy, and he's always standing outside that store.

Ok, let's modify my example from "some guy" to "some guy you know" and imagine that a lot of people know this guy, and he's always standing outside that store. The store would get mad for sure. Don't get me wrong here, I would happily use any service that would save me money if I didn't believe it was a bit shady. I'm just kind of foreseeing a bit of a legal issue if this somehow took off and got on Amazon's radar and their sales started noticeably dropping. If legal action could NOT be pursued, it would be easy for Amazon to update their code to prevent any sort of injection like this, and it would turn into a cat-and-mouse game of who could update their code more quickly: setInterval(function() { var button = document.getElementById('zincbutton'); //or whatever button && button.remove(); }, 100);

NathanKP 13y ago
From what they describe on their FAQ page they just use crafty ordering techniques and deals to save you money. They aren't necessarily parasitizing sales from Amazon and sending them elsewhere, they are just taking advantage of savings techniques and coupons that already exist. It's like meeting up with your friend outside the store to go shopping, and he has a big binder full of coupons that he's cut out of newspapers and circulars, and he has a credit card that he uses when checking out that has a nice rewards bonus. He uses his coupons and reward bonus to save you money and pass the savings back to you. In return he keeps a portion of the savings. So Amazon might not have that big of an axe to grind with them because its not really hurting them that much. But I totally agree about the cat and mouse issue. I don't think this company has a very solid business model, because if history shows anything its that these kind of browser extensions require constant updating to keep them operational, especially if the website is actively trying to block them by changing the DOM, JS, etc. The ongoing development and maintenance costs of keeping this extension operational are going to severely eat into any minor profits that they make, especially if Amazon closes or limits some of the savings exploits / coupons that they are using currently. Still I wish them the best of luck in their venture. I'm sure it will be a fun and interesting project for their devs, and if they succeed at becoming profitable all the better.

NathanKP 13y ago

From what they describe on their FAQ page they just use crafty ordering techniques and deals to save you money. They aren't necessarily parasitizing sales from Amazon and sending them elsewhere, they are just taking advantage of savings techniques and coupons that already exist. It's like meeting up with your friend outside the store to go shopping, and he has a big binder full of coupons that he's cut out of newspapers and circulars, and he has a credit card that he uses when checking out that has a nice rewards bonus. He uses his coupons and reward bonus to save you money and pass the savings back to you. In return he keeps a portion of the savings. So Amazon might not have that big of an axe to grind with them because its not really hurting them that much. But I totally agree about the cat and mouse issue. I don't think this company has a very solid business model, because if history shows anything its that these kind of browser extensions require constant updating to keep them operational, especially if the website is actively trying to block them by changing the DOM, JS, etc. The ongoing development and maintenance costs of keeping this extension operational are going to severely eat into any minor profits that they make, especially if Amazon closes or limits some of the savings exploits / coupons that they are using currently. Still I wish them the best of luck in their venture. I'm sure it will be a fun and interesting project for their devs, and if they succeed at becoming profitable all the better.