Does Amazon Do Questionable Stuff? Sponsored Listings? Hmmm.
January 4, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon, eBay, other selling platforms allow vendors to buy sponsored ads or listings. Sponsored ads or listings promote products and services to the top of search results. It’s similar to how Google sells ads. Unfortunately Google’s search results are polluted with more sponsored ads than organic results. Sponsored ads might not be a wise investment. Pluralistic explains that sponsored ads are really a huge waste of money: “Sponsored Listings Are A Ripoff For Sellers.”
Amazon relies on a payola sponsored ad system, where sellers bid to be the top-ranked in listings even if their products don’t apply to a search query. Payola systems are illegal but Amazon makes $31 billion annually from its system. The problem is that the $31 billion is taken from Amazon sellers who pay it in fees for the privilege to sell on the platform. Sellers then recoup that money from consumers and prices are raised across all the markets. Amazon controls pricing on the Internet.
Another huge part of a seller’s budget is for Amazon advertising. If sellers don’t buy ads in searches that correspond to their products, they’re kicked off the first page. The Amazon payola system only benefits the company and sellers who pay into the payola. Three business-school researchers Vibhanshu Abhishek, Jiaqi Shi and Mingyu Joo studied the harmful effects of payolas:
“After doing a lot of impressive quantitative work, the authors conclude that for good sellers, showing up as a sponsored listing makes buyers trust their products less than if they floated to the top of the results "organically." This means that buying an ad makes your product less attractive than not buying an ad. The exception is sellers who have bad products – products that wouldn’t rise to the top of the results on their own merits. The study finds that if you buy your mediocre product’s way to the top of the results, buyers trust it more than they would if they found it buried deep on page eleventy-million, to which its poor reviews, quality or price would normally banish it. But of course, if you’re one of those good sellers, you can’t simply opt not to buy an ad, even though seeing it with the little "AD" marker in the thumbnail makes your product less attractive to shoppers. If you don’t pay the danegeld, your product will be pushed down by the inferior products whose sellers are only too happy to pay ransom.”
It’s getting harder to compete and make a living on online selling platforms. It would be great if Amazon sided with the indy sellers and quit the payola system. That will never happen.
Whitney Grace, January 4, 2024
Amazon and the US Government: Doing Just Fine, Thanks
December 26, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
OSHA was established to protect workers from unsafe conditions. Big technology barons like Jeff Bezos with Amazon don’t give rat’s hind quarters about employee safety. They might project an image of caring and kindness but that’s from Amazon’s PR department. Amazon is charged with innumerable workplace violations, including micromanaging yawning to poor compensation. The Washington Posts details one of Amazon’s latest scandals, “A 20-Year-Old Amazon Employee Died At Work. Indiana Issued A $7000 Fine.”
Twenty-year old Caes Gruesbeck was clearing a blockage on an overhead conveyor belt at the Amazon distribution center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He needed to use an elevated lift to reach the blockage. His head collided with the conveyor and became trapped. Gruesbeck later died from blunt force trauma.
Indiana safety officials investigated for eleven weeks and found that Amazon failed to ensure a safe work environment. Amazon was only cited and fined $7000. Amazon employees continue to be injured and the country’s second largest private employer is constantly scrutinized, but state and federal safety regulators are failing to enforce policies. They are failing because Amazon is a powerful corporation with a hefty legal department.
“‘Seven thousand dollars for the death of a 20-year-old? What’s that going to do to Amazon?’ said Stephen Wagner, an Indiana attorney who has advocated for more worker-friendly laws in the state. ‘There’s no real financial incentive for an employer like Amazon to change their working environment to make it more safe.’”
Federal and state governments are trying to make Amazon take responsibility through the current system but it’s slow. Safety regulators can’t inspect every Amazon complaint and building. They are instead working towards a sweeping company approach like the Family Dollar and Dollar Tree investigations about blocked fire exits. It took six years, resulting in $15 million in fines and a $1.35 million settlement.
Once companies are hit with large fines it changes how they do business. Amazon probably will be brought to justice but it will take a long time.
Whitney Grace, December 26, 2023
Interesting Factoid about Money and Injury Reduction Payoff of Robots at Amazon
December 12, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Who know if the data in “Amazon’s Humanoid Warehouse Robots Will Eventually Cost Only $3 Per Hour to Operate. That Won’t Calm Workers’ Fears of Being Replaced” are accurate. Anyone who has watch a video clip about the Musky gigapress or the Toyota auto assembly process understands one thing: Robots don’t take breaks, require vacations, or baloney promises that taking a college class will result in a promotion.
An unknown worker speaks with a hypothetical robot. The robot allegedly stepped on a worker named “John.” My hunch is that the firm’s PR firm will make clear that John is doing just fine. No more golf or mountain climbing but otherwise just super. Thanks MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
The headline item is the most important; that is, the idea of $3 per hour cost. That’s why automation even if the initial robots are lousy will continue apace. Once an outfit like Amazon figures out how to get “good enough” work from non-humans, it will be hasta la vista time.
However, the write up includes a statement which is fascinating in its vagueness. The context is that automation may mistake a humanoid for a box or a piece of equipment. The box is unlikely to file a law suit if the robot crushes it. The humanoid, on the other hand, will quickly surrounded by a flock of legal eagles.
Here’s the passage which either says a great deal about Amazon or about the research effort invested in the article:
And it’s still not clear whether robots will truly improve worker safety. One whistleblower report in 2020 from investigative journalism site Reveal included leaked internal data that showed that Amazon’s robotic warehouses had higher injury rates than warehouses that don’t use robots — Amazon strongly refuted the report at the time, saying that the reporter was "misinterpreting data." "Company data shows that, in 2022, recordable incident rates and lost-time incident rates were 15% and 18% lower, respectively, at Amazon Robotics sites than non-robotics sites," Amazon says on its website.
I understand the importance of the $3 per hour cost. But the major item of interest is the incidence of accidents when humanoids and robots interact in a fast-paced picking and shipping set up. The information provided about injuries is thin and warrants closer analysis in my opinion. I loved the absence of numeric context for the assertion of a “lower” injury rate. Very precise.
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2023
Amazon Customer Service: Let Many Flowers Bloom and Die on the Vine
November 29, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Amazon has been outputting artificial intelligence “assertions” at a furious pace. What’s clear is that Amazon is “into” the volume and variety business in my opinion. The logic of offering multiple “works in progress” and getting them to work reasonably well is going to have three characteristics: The first is that deploying and operating different smart software systems is going to be expensive. The second is that tuning and maintaining high levels of accuracy in the outputs will be expensive. The third is that supporting the users, partners, customers, and integrators is going to be expensive. If we use a bit of freshman in high school algebra, the common factor is expensive. Amazon’s remarkable assertion that no one wants to bet a business on just one model strikes me as a bit out of step with the world in which bean counters scuttle and scurry in green eyeshades and sleeve protectors. (See. I am a dinobaby. Sleeve protectors. I bet none of the OpenAI type outfits have accountants who use these fashion accessories!)
Let’s focus on just one facet of the expensive burdens I touched upon above— customer service. Navigate to the remarkable and stunningly uncritical write up called “How to Reach Amazon Customer Service: A Complete Guide.” The write up is an earthworm list of the “options” Amazon provides. As Amazon was announcing its new new big big things, I was trying to figure out why an order for an $18 product was rejected. The item in question was one part of a multipart order. The other, more costly items were approved and billed to my Amazon credit card.
Thanks MSFT Copilot. You do a nice broken bulldozer or at least a good enough one.
But the dog treats?
I systematically worked through the Amazon customer service options. As a Prime customer, I assumed one of them would work. Here’s my report card:
- Amazon’s automated help. A loop. See Help pages which suggested I navigate too the customer service page. Cute. A first year comp sci student’s programming error. A loop right out of the box. Nifty.
- The customer service page. Well, that page sent me to Help and Help sent me to the automation loop. Cool Zero for two.
- Access through the Amazon app. Nope. I don’t install “apps” on my computing devices unless I have zero choice. (Yes, I am thinking about Apple and Google.) Too bad Amazon, I reject your app the way I reject QR codes used by restaurants. (Do these hash slingers know that QR codes are a fave of some bad actors?)
- Live chat with Amazon customer service was not live. It was a bot. The suggestion? Get back in the loop. Maybe the chat staff was at the Amazon AI announcement or just severely overstaffed or simply did not care. Another loser.
- Request a call from Amazon customer service. Yeah, I got to that after I call Amazon customer service. Another loser.
I repeated the “call Amazon customer service” twice and I finally worked through the automated system and got a person who barely spoke English. I explained the problem. One product rejected because my Amazon credit card was rejected. I learned that this particular customer service expert did not understand how that could have happened. Yeah, great work.
How did I resolve the rejected credit card. I called the Chase Bank customer service number. I told a person my card was manipulated and I suspected fraud. I was escalated to someone who understood the word “fr4aud.” After about five minutes of “’Will you please hold”, the Chase person told me, “The problem is at Amazon, not your card and not Chase.”
What was the fix? Chase said, “Cancel the order.” I did and went to another vendor.
Now what’s that experience suggest about Amazon’s ability (willingness) to provide effective, efficient customer support to users of its purported multiple large language models, AI systems, and assorted marketing baloney output during Amazon’s “we are into AI” week?
My answer? The Bezos bulldozer has an engine belching black smoke, making a lot of noise because the muffler has a hole in it, and the thumpity thump of the engine reveals that something is out of tune.
Yeah, AI and customer support. Just one of the “expensive” things Amazon may not be able to deliver. The troubling thing is that Amazon’s AI may have been powering the multiple customer support systems. Yikes.
Stephen E Arnold, November 29, 2023
Amazon Alexa Factoids: A Look Behind the Storefront Curtains
November 24, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Hey, Amazon admirers, I noted some interesting (allegedly accurate factoids) in “Amazon Alexa to Lose $10 Billion This Year.” No, I was not pulled by interesting puddle of red ink.
Alexa loves to sidestep certain questions. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Nice work even though you are making life difficult for Google’s senior management today.
Let me share four items which I thought interesting. Please, navigate to the original write up to get the full monte. (I support the tailor selling civvies, not the card game.)
- “Just about every plan to monetize Alexa has failed, with one former employee calling Alexa ‘a colossal failure of imagination,’ and ‘a wasted opportunity.’” [I noted the word colossal.]
- “Amazon can’t make money from Alexa telling you the weather”
- “I worked in the Amazon Alexa division. The level of incompetence coupled with arrogance was astounding.”
- “FAANG has gotten so large that the stock bump that comes from narrative outpaces actual revenue from working products.”
Now how about the management philosophy behind these allegedly accurate statements? It sounds like the consequences of doing high school science club field trip planning. Not sure how those precepts work? Just do a bit of reading about the OpenAI – Sam AI-Man hootenanny.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2023
Pundit Recounts Amazon Sins and Their Fixes
November 14, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Sci-fi author and Pluralistic blogger Cory Doctorow is not a fan of Amazon. In fact, he declares, “Amazon Is a Ripoff.” His article references several sources to support this assertion, beginning with Lina Khan’s 2017 cautionary paper published in the Yale Law Journal. Now head of the FTC, Khan is bringing her expertise to bear in a lawsuit against the monopoly. We are reminded how tech companies have been able to get away with monopolistic practices thus far:
“There’s a cheat-code in US antitrust law, one that’s been increasingly used since the Reagan administration, when the ‘consumer welfare’ theory (‘monopolies are fine, so long as the lower prices’) shoved aside the long-established idea that antitrust law existed to prevent monopolies from forming at all. The idea that a company can do anything to create or perpetuate a monopoly so long as its prices go down and/or its quality goes up is directly to blame for the rise of Big Tech.”
But what, exactly, is shady about Amazon’s practices? From confusing consumers through complexity and gouging them with “drip pricing” to holding vendors over a barrel, Doctorow describes the company’s sins in this long, specific, and heavily linked diatribe. He then pulls three rules to hold Amazon accountable from a paper by researchers Tim O’Reilly, Ilan Strauss, and Mariana Mazzucato: Force the company to halt its most deceptive practices, mandate interoperability between it and comparison shopping sites, and create legal safe harbors for the scraping that underpins such interoperability. The invective concludes:
“I was struck by how much convergence there is among different kinds of practitioners, working against the digital sins of very different kinds of businesses. From the CFPB using mandates and privacy rules to fight bank rip-offs to behavioral economists thinking about Amazon’s manipulative search results. This kind of convergence is exciting as hell. After years of pretending that Big Tech was good for ‘consumers,’ we’ve not only woken up to how destructive these companies are, but we’re also all increasingly in accord about what to do about it. Hot damn!”
He sounds so optimistic. Are big changes ahead? Don’t forget to sign up for Prime.
Cynthia Murrell, November 14, 2023
A New Union or Just a Let’s Have Lunch Moment for Two Tech Giants
November 10, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
There is nothing like titans of technology and revenue generation discovering a common interest. The thrill is the consummation and reaping the subsequent rewards. “Meta Lets Amazon Shoppers Buy Products on Facebook and Instagram without Leaving the Apps” explains:
Meta doesn’t want you to leave its popular mobile apps when making that impulse Amazon purchase. The company debuted a new feature allowing users to link their Facebook and Instagram accounts to Amazon so they can buy goods by clicking on promotions in their feeds.
Two amped up, big time tech bros discover that each has something the other wants. What is that? An opportunity to extend and exploit perhaps? Thanks, Microsoft Bing, you do get the drift of my text prompt, don’t you?
The Zuckbook’s properties touch billions of people. Some of those people want to buy “stuff.” Legitimate stuff has required the user to click away and navigate to the online bookstore to purchase a copy of the complete works of Francis Bacon. Now, the Instagram user can buy without leaving the comforting arms of the Zuck.
Does anyone have a problem with that tie up? I don’t. It is definitely a benefit for the teen who must have the latest lip gloss. It is good for Amazon because the hope is that Zucksters will buy from the online bookstore. The Meta outfit probably benefits with some sort of inducement. Maybe it is just a hug from Amazon executives? Maybe it is an opportunity to mud wrestle with Mr. Bezos if he decides to get down and dirty to show his physical prowess?
Will US regulators care? Will EU regulators care? Will anyone care?
I am not sure how to answer these questions. For decades the high tech outfits have been able to emulate the captains of industry in the golden age without much cause for concern. Continuity is good.
Will teens buy copies of Novum Organum? Absolutely.
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2023
Amazon: Numerical Recipes Poison Good Deals
November 8, 2023
Dinobaby here. I read “FTC Alleges Amazon Used a Price-Gouging Algorithm.” The allegations in the article are likely to ruffle some legal eagles wearing Amazon merchandise. The main idea is that a numerical recipe named after the dinobaby’s avatar manipulated prices to generate more revenue for the Bezos bulldozer. This is a bulldozer relocating to Miami too. Miami says, “Buenos días.” Engadget says:
Amazon faces allegations from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of wielding price-gouging algorithms through an operation called “Project Nessie” according to court documents filed Thursday. The FTC says the algorithm has generated more than $1 billion in excess profit for Jeff Bezos’s e-commerce giant.
Let’s assume the allegations contain a dinosaur scale or two of truth. What could one living in rural Kentucky conclude? How about these notions:
- Amazon knows how to use fancy math in a way that advantages itself. Imagine the earning power of manipulated algorithms powered by smart software in the hands of engineers eager to earn a bonus, a promotion, and maybe a ride in a rocket ship from the fountain head of the online bookstore. Yep, just imagine.
- Amazon got caught. If the justice system prevails, will shoppers avoid Anazon?l lNope, in my opinion. There are more Amazon delivery vehicles in the area where I live in nowhere Kentucky than on the main highway. Convenience wins. So what if the pricing is wonky. Couch potatoes like couches, not driving 30 minutes to a so-called store. Laws just may not matter when it comes to big tech outfits.
- Other companies may learn from Amazon. The estimable CocaCola machines in some whiz kids’ dreams learns what a person likes and prices accordingly. That innovation may become a reality as some bright sparks invent the future of billing as much as possible and hamstringing competitors. Nice work, if Amazon does have the alleged money machine algorithms.
What is the future of retail? I would offer the opinion that trickery, mendacity, and cleverness will become the keys to success. I am glad I am an old dinobaby, but I like the name “Nessie.” My mama Dino had a friend named Nessie. Nice fangs and big quiet pads on her claws. Perfect for catching and killing prey.
Stephen E Arnold, November 7, 2023
Amazon: Great Products and Transparent Pricing Impress
October 24, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Free SaaS trials are supposed to demonstrate a software’s capabilities and benefits to convince the user to subscribe. Sometimes free trials require users to input their billing information. If users aren’t careful, they’re charged for the SaaS. Reddit user Mizcizi had a bad experience when he signed up for AWS, read his post, “1k Bill After 1 Month, For The Service I Didn’t Even Use.”
Mizcizi signed up for a free AWS trial to test its Web hosting. He tried AWS Amplify but didn’t like it. He still wanted to use AWS S3 for storage and everything was going well for a while then the problems started. First, the data couldn’t be verified, next the account was suspended. He ignored the issues because he used another storage service.
AWS via RDS then slapped him with a $1000 bill for 280.233 Hrs, 1,129.972 IOPS-Mo, and 150.663 GB-Mo. Here are more details:
“Now there are a few things wrong with this. At first, I don’t remember setting up any RDS service. I might have checked what it provides because I was also checking for a DB hosting at the time, so I’m not 100% about that. What I am 100% sure is that I never used RDS anywhere, so I don’t know where all their IOPS are coming from. One thing that also doesn’t make sense is the 280.233 Hrs resulting in 391.77 USD. In the free trial for RDS, it says that you get 750 free hours.”
Mizcizi is trying to work with AWS support. Because he’s a first time user they may probably wipe the bill. He could also cancel the payment through his credit card. Other comments offered suggestions like setting up bill notifications, opening a support case, and explaining how the charges racked up.
Many comments said that AWS allegedly overcharges some users and recommending services for novice tech developers. Then the invoice arrives. Yipes.
Whitney Grace, October 24, 2023
Amazon Switches To AI Review Summaries
September 22, 2023
The online yard sale eBay offers an AI-generated description feature for sellers. Following in the same vein, Engadget reports that, “Amazon Begins Rolling Out AI-Generated Review Summaries” for products with clickable keywords. Amazon announced in June 2023 that it was testing an AI summary tool across a a range of products. The company officially launched the tool in August declaring that AI is at the heart of Amazon.
Amazon developed the AI summary tool so consumers can read buyers’ opinions without scrolling through pages of information. The summaries are described as a wrap-up of customer consensus akin to film blurbs on Rotten Tomatoes. The AI summaries contain clickable tags that showcase common words and consistent themes from reviews. Clicking on the tags will take consumers to the full review with the information.
AI-generated review summaries bring up another controversial topic: Amazon and fake reviews. Fake reviews litter the selling platform like a slew of counterfeit products Amazon, eBay, and other online selling platforms battle. While Amazon claims it takes a proactive stance to detect and delete the reviews, it does not catch all the fakes. It is speculated that AI-generated reviews from ChatGPT or other chatbots are harder for Amazon to catch.
In regards to using its own AI summary tool, Amazon plans to only use it on verified purchases and using more AI models to detect fake reviews. Humans will be used for clarification with their more discerning organic brains. Amazon said about its news tool:
“‘We continue to invest significant resources to proactively stop fake reviews,’ Amazon Community Shopping Director Vaughn Schermerhorn said. ‘This includes machine learning models that analyze thousands of data points to detect risk, including relations to other accounts, sign-in activity, review history, and other indications of unusual behavior, as well as expert investigators that use sophisticated fraud-detection tools to analyze and prevent fake reviews from ever appearing in our store. The new AI-generated review highlights use only our trusted review corpus from verified purchases, ensuring that customers can easily understand the community’s opinions at a glance.’”
AI tools are trained using language models that contain known qualitative errors. The same AI tools are used to teach more AI and so on. While we do not know what Amazon is using to train its AI summary tool, we would not be surprised if the fake reviews are using similar training models to Amazon’s. It will come down to Amazon AI vs. counterfeit AI. Who will win?
Whitney Grace, September 22, 2023
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
