Amazon Innovation: Me Too, Me Too
December 12, 2022
I read “Amazon Comes for TikTok with Its Own In App Shopping Feed.” The main idea is that me too appears to be a driver of technological and product innovation at the world’s mom and pop online store. The write up states:
The online retail giant has announced Inspire(opens in new tab), a new short-form video experience that allows consumers to explore and buy products through a shoppable feed…
But wait there’s more to the crack Amazon technologists’ pioneering breakthroughs:
Amazon’s Inspire adds photos to the mix, giving users more ways to discover products they may like from various content creators, brands, and even other customers.
What I found interesting is that Amazon has discovered that a mobile first strategy makes sense. What an astounding market insight! Who knew other than Google, app developers, large telcos, and outfits making mobile phones. Other than those few segments, the mobile revolution has gone unnoticed until now.
The write up points out that Amazon may tap influencers to pitch its new, breath taking service. My thought is that stressed out Twitch content creators could be induced to pitch the Amazon’s Eureka moment with more money from the mom and pop online retailer.
My reaction to this shotgun hook up of TikTok and the Zucker’s Instagram is that Amazon has achieved quantum mobile supremacy. Oh, wait. That supremacy claim is one that Google likes to use.
Amazon will come up with some brilliant Mad Ave lingo. I am thinking “next day delivery” or “customer service.” Oh, wait…
Stephen E Arnold, December 12, 2022
Collusion? What Do You Mean Collusion?
November 30, 2022
Ah what wise and ethical firms we have at the top of the tech food chain. MacRumors reports, “Amazon and Apple ‘Colluded’ to Make iPhone and iPad More Expensive, Says Antitrust Lawsuit.” The complaint alleges the companies conspired to kick third-party vendors of Apple products from Amazon’s marketplace in order to escalate prices and keep them aloft. Did they think no one would notice? We learn:
“There were around 600 third-party sellers of Apple devices on Amazon Marketplace, which was whittled down to just seven. Amazon began eliminating third-party sellers after it signed a 2019 deal with Apple to limit the number of resellers on Amazon marketplace to 20 per country. In exchange, Apple provided Amazon with a discounted wholesale price for iPhones and iPads. By restricting third-party sellers from offering Apple products, Amazon made itself the dominant seller of Apple products on Amazon Marketplace, which Amazon and Apple both ‘stood to benefit from’ even though it ‘would harm the public.’ The lawsuit claims that prior to the agreement, third-party resellers were offering ‘prices steeply discounted’ from those Apple wanted to have for its online storefront, which resulted in lower prices for consumers.”
That does look bad. But wait, there is an important caveat:
“There is no word on specific devices that went up in price due to the agreement, and no explanation of whether sellers were offering older devices or current products, nor if these were refurbished devices.”
Those would be key distinctions. The write-up does not mention (though commenters have) that purveyors of stolen and counterfeit goods are known to operate through Amazon. Were any of them among the approximately 590 sellers axed? We may never know.
The suit requests an injunction forcing Amazon to allow third-party Apple sellers back on and to reimburse customers who it claims overpaid by as much as 20%. We are curious to see how this lawsuit plays out.
Cynthia Murrell, November 30, 2022
Amazon: The Bezos Bulldozer Shoves Customers and Crushes Competitors
November 11, 2022
The myth of the enlightened technology company led by an ethical, socially-minded leadership team seems to be dissipating like fog in a Kentucky hollow on a spring morning. Whether it was the craziness of blue and gray checks on Twitter or the public confessions of the Zuck, there is mounting evidence that knowledge of programming does not translate into effective management. In our nifty money centric country, money means brilliance, leadership skills, wisdom, and a quantum link to JP Morgan, Jay Gould, Andrew Carnegie, et al.
I want to shift from the public chaos to an interesting article from a Silicon Valley type of “real” news outfit. The article which caught my attention is “Basically Everything on Amazon Has Become an Ad.” The write up reveals that Amazon is not an old-fashioned Sears catalog. Nope, Amazon is a more expensive variant of eBay. I noted:
Amazon has designs to boost its ad business to new heights by selling more video commercials on Amazon properties like the video game livestreaming service Twitch and during live sporting events streamed on Prime Video; and by offering audio ads on Amazon Music. The company has also invested heavily in in-house software tools that allow brands to purchase highly targeted ads around the web.
The write up then misses what I think is the main thrust of the Bezos bulldozer. The article states:
Amazon has become a power player in yet another industry, adding advertising to a list that already includes e-commerce, logistics, entertainment, cloud computing, and voice assistants.
Sort of like other close-enough-for-horseshoes’ analysis.
The direction at Amazon is institutionalizing dark patterns. Users/customers think one thing, and the company is moving them like cattle in a Chicago stock yard to the meat packing plant.
Advertising is manipulative communication. Consider these methods at Amazon:
- Complex pricing mechanisms within AWS
- Lack of transparency about the data flowing into its commercial database business
- Functionality provided to certain government agencies within the Amazon Government regions and clouds
- Functionality within “free” music designed to create a need for a more expensive version of the service so users can create playlists.
There are other dark patterns as well. (I won’t mention the security mechanism for certain AWS cloud services which are extra cost options, not the default.)
Net net: More attention may be warranted by regulatory entities in the US and other countries. The Bezos bulldozer is reshaping landscapes, and everyone thinks that these “developments” are good for everyone. How many rabbits and squirrels are crushed by the Bezos bulldozers each day? Give up. The answer is a lot. Who wants to give up the one-click service, the subscription to common products, and the mythical one-day delivery?
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2022
Amazon: An Ecosystem in Which Some Bad Actors Thrive
October 6, 2022
Wow! Who knew? I must admit that I have developed what I call a “Hypothetical Ecommerce Crime Ecosystem.” Because I am an old, dinobaby, I have not shared my musings in this semi entertaining Web log. I do relatively few “public” talks. I am careful not to be “volunteered” for a local networking meet up like those organized by the somewhat ineffectual “chamber of commerce” in central Kentucky. Plus, I am never sure if those with whom I speak are “into” ecosystems of crime. Sure, last week I gave a couple of boring lectures to a few law enforcement, crime analysts, and government senior officials. But did the light bulbs flashing during and after my talk impair my vision. Nah.
I did read a write up which nibbles around the edges of my diagram for my hypothetical crime ecosystem. “There’s an Underground Market Where Secondhand Amazon Merchant Accounts Are Bought and Sold for Thousands of Dollars” asserts as 100 percent actual factual:
An Insider investigation revealed a thriving gray market for secondhand Amazon seller accounts. On Telegram and forums like Swapd and PlayerUp, thousands of brokers openly sell accounts, with prices ranging from a few hundred bucks for a new account to thousands of dollars apiece for years-old accounts with established histories. … The accounts sometimes steal random people’s identities to disguise themselves, and sellers are using these fake credentials to engage in questionable behavior on Amazon, Insider found — including selling counterfeit textbooks. The people’s whose names and addresses are being stolen are sometimes then sent hundreds of returns by unhappy customers.
Is there other possibly inappropriate activity on the Amazon giant bookstore? The write up says:
Merchants have used shady tactics like submitting false fraud reports targeting rivals, or bribing Amazon employees to scuttle competitors. Others peddle counterfeit or shoddily produced wares. Amazon bans fraudulent sellers, along with other accounts they’re suspected of owning, and blacklists their business name, physical location, and IP address.
Okay, but why?
My immediate reaction is money. May I offer a few speculations about such ecosystem centric behavior? You say, No. Too bad. Here are my opinions:
- Amazon does basic cost benefit analyses. The benefit is the amount of money Amazon gets to keep. The cost is the sum of the time, effort, and direct outflow of cash required to monitor and terminate what might be called the Silicon Valley way. (Yeah, I know Amazon like Microsoft is in some state in the US Northwest, but the spirit of the dudes and dudettes in Silicon Valley knows no geographic boundaries. Did you notice the “con” in “silicon.” Coincidence?
- Bad actors know a thriving ecosystem when they see one. Buy stolen products from a trusted third party, and who worries to much about where the person in the white van obtained them. Pay the driver, box ‘em up, and ship out those razors and other goods easily stolen from assorted brick-and-mortar stores in certain US locations; for example, the Walgreen’s in Tony Bennett’s favorite city.
- The foil of third party intermediaries makes it easy for everyone in the ecosystem to say, “Senator, thank you for the question. I do not know the details of our firm’s business relationship. I will obtain the information and send a report to your office.” When? Well, maybe struggling FedEx or the Senate’s internal mail system lost the report. Bummer. Just request another copy, rinse, and repeat. The method has worked for a couple of decades. Don’t fix it if the system is not broken.
What’s interesting about my “Hypothetical Ecommerce Crime Ecosystem” in my opinion is:
- Plausible deniability is baked in
- Those profiting from exploitation of the Amazon money rain forest have zero incentive or downside to leave the system as it is. Change costs money and — let’s face it — there have been zero significant downsides to the status quo for decades. Yep, decades.
- Enforcement resources are stretched at this time. Thus, what I call “soft fraud” is easier than ever to set up and embed in business processes.
Is the cited article correct? Sure, I believe everything I read online, including Amazon reviews of wireless headphones and cheap T shirts.
Is my analysis correct? I don’t know. I am probably wrong and I am too old, too worn out, too jaded to do much more than ask, “Is that product someone purchased on Amazon an original, unfenced item?”
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2022
Amazon: Two Day Delivery? Well, Sort Of?
October 5, 2022
Amazon Prime subscribers love the two-day shipping. When their item does not arrive within time, they get upset because they paid good morning for a service! Removing the Karen spirit from the last sentence, it is understandable that there will be occasional holdups with delivery. If delays continue, then there is something wrong with the pipeline. Vox digs into what is happening with Amazon’s delivery system in: “Some Amazon Prime Customers Say They Don’t Have Two Day Shipping Anymore.”
Former corporate Amazon employee Peter Freese noticed that Amazon delivery times were taking longer than expected in his hometown Omak, Washington. After he read complaints similar to his own online, Freese decided to experiment. He had Amazon packages sent to random residential addresses in all thirty-nine Washington counties. All the orders were branded with Amazon Prime, but lacked the “two-day” or “next-day” shipping option.
Lauren Samaha, an Amazon spokesperson, stated there were no problems with Amazon’s delivery times, but they fluctuate based on mitigating factors. She affirmed the company was not cutting costs nor denying two-day delivery to addresses within the continental US.
Freese, however, discovered that was not true:
“Freese’s analysis goes beyond those semantics, though: What he’s found is that some customers who once had Prime two-day shipping no longer do, even on commonly purchased items. Yet they’re still paying the full Prime membership fees like everyone else.”
Amazon’s warehouse employees work under a tight surveillance ship that keeps going 24/7. According to many former and present workers, the working conditions are exploitative, harmful, and can result in injury. Amazon admitted that they underestimated how many employees they needed to staff their warehouses during the pandemic. Delivery delays also point out that Amazon is not infallible and it is beginning to show cracks.
It would be nice if Amazon admitted its weaknesses, then focused on improving employees’ working conditions. Happy workers means higher productivity.
Whitney Grace, October 5, 2022
Amazon Strategy: Just Prime the Pump with Low Grade Fuel
September 30, 2022
Have you pulled into a filling station in rural Missouri, filled your tank, and driven into the beauty of the state? Enjoyable, right. At least it was fun until the motor died because the fuel you purchased won’t run in your whale killing, dolphin destroying vehicle with a giant V8 and oversized wheels.
Bummer.
I think that’s how some Amazon employees feel after reading an email explaining that Amazons payroll department is not very good at math. You know. The hard math of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Strike that: Amazon has subtraction and division (maybe divisiveness) under control.
“Oops, Amazon Emails Staff with News It Miscalculated Their Compensation” reports what may be “real news”:
A one-time bonus that was part of their compensation package had been miscalculated due to a software error and would be lower than what they had been told … The bonuses had initially been calculated using older, higher stock prices and about 40% of promoted employees this quarter were affected by the error.
No biggie. Just 40 percent of the Amazon happy tribe of Bezos bulldozer drivers.
The lower pay tier workers at the joyful Amazon money factory heard some bad news earlier, according to the write up:
Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy said that a $25 minimum wage is unlikely.
Interesting. Perhaps this ineptitude explains why Amazon has been less than revealing in some of its financial reports. The term for this is either inepticity, duplicity, or innumeracy, but that’s just my personal opinion.
What happened to my next day delivery?
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2022
Amazon and Open Source: A Me Too Spin on Microsoft and Its Extinguish Tactic?
September 26, 2022
I heard that Amazon — the lovable online bookstore — is thinking about open source software in general and open source search specifically. This is just a hunch, based on comments bandied about in the vendors’ area at a recent law enforcement conference. The attendees may not think much about Amazon as an ecosystem for bad actors but the vendors with whom I talk are:
Aware
Eager to use the AWS platform
Expressing varying degrees of concern.
Were these vendors representative of the cyber security community? Are you kidding? Were the conference attendees a cross section of the more than 100 US enforcement agencies? Nope.
So why do I mention this impression? Three reasons:
- Amazon, like Microsoft, provides plumbing for a number of government entities and for some darned interesting cyber security vendors in the US and elsewhere (Hello, Israel?)
- The US government is not a cohesive entity. One of the regulatory agencies, which I shall not name, is thinking hard thoughts about the friendly online bookstore. I have heard that third party seller activity (Amazon’s and some seller), Amazon’s human centric management approach, and some of Amazon’s surfing on data generated by resellers, vendors, and possibly home shoppers are topics of interest.
- Years ago, Amazon hired some Lucid Imagination open source search professionals and plopped the wizards in the Bezos Bulldozer’s Burlingame office. Evolving from that “lucid” input, the venerable online bookstore engaged in a game of fork you with Elastic, a company associated with the open source Elasticsearch, for fee services, and a digital animal dubbed ELK.
These reasons cause me to recall one of the principal conclusions my team and I formulated when we wrote “Open Source Search Report” for a mid tier consulting firm. (Unsurprisingly the company changed hands and the study was split apart with individual chapters going for $3,000 each on — guess what online bookstore? Give up? It was Amazon.
I reflected on the conclusion in our monograph: Open source is the domain of large corporate entities. Why? Open source was pretty much free and could be changed. Plus, unpaid open source enthusiasts would find and fix software problems.
One of the reasons enterprise search in general and content processing in particular has been a company killer is that search is not an “application.” Search is weirdly personal, and each enterprise search client wanted a system that would work for the many silos within an organizational structure.
The information super highway is littered with search road kill. Many of the names are long forgotten. When was the last time you longer for the francophone centric Delphis or the enterprise powerhouse Entopia?
Why am I thinking about Amazon and open source search?
I read “Open Source Bait and Switch” with the fetching and click magnet subtitle “When OSS advocacy goes too far & corporate greed takes over, free software is used as a tool to destroy competition and hurt the developer community.”
I noted these statements in the article, which is in step with our 2011 research. (Yep, more than a decade ago, which I find interesting.)
let me highlight a couple of statements from the article which arrested my attention this morning (Monday, September 26, 2022).
Take Elastic search. They were open source and killing it. But AWS was forking and not really helping their bottom line. So Elastic changed their license to block AWS. AWS started their own fork. Some people vilify Elastic in this story but those people probably never had to fight Amazon for the survival of their business. In this case, both sides weaponised open source in a business fight.
Also:
I love open source and think it’s remarkably important. That’s why we shouldn’t let corporations weaponize it.
And:
Major corporations use open source as a weapon to fight each other, we seem to benefit in the short term. But as they win the corporate mindset takes over and they double down on control.
What’s shaking at Amazon? Based on my vantage point and my limited viewshed, I will hazard several observations:
- Amazon wants to dominate via search and retrieval because it is a utility that is essential for next generate search based applications.
- Amazon wants to strike at its competitors, which are estimable organizations obviously, and deprive them of any advantage these firms may be perceived to have when it comes to findability. Could these be great outfits like Google and Microsoft as well as annoying start ups like Algolia and the almost laughable Gulliver of search in Canada as well as an interesting entity morphing as I write this essay? (Want names? Sorry, not in a free blog, you silly goose.)
- Amazon lacks imagination, and it is — in my opinion — manifesting the old Microsoft method of embrace, extend, and extinguish. Yep, extinguish. In my view, Amazon is showing other outstanding for profit entities how to attack competitors, community minded open source developers, and users of Amazon AWS simultaneously. None of the “special operation” thinking that has been in the news lately. Amazon is operating strategically and tactically with a single minded purpose. Split up the bookstore and each part will grow bigger than it is today.
Should I worry that my eBook won’t arrive or the French bulldog’s winter coat fail to show up tomorrow? Nah. What about open source, the community thing, the free thing. Yep, worry is good.
Stephen E Arnold, September 26, 2022
Amazon Needs More Lobbyists, More Former Government Professionals… Pronto!
September 26, 2022
I have no idea about Amazon’s lobbying efforts. I don’t want to know. The money spent on DC insiders and Beltway Bandits makes me wish I still lived in the DC area. Selling work? Not too tough for those with connections. Heh, heh, if you know what I mean. Also, I am not confident that the modern RNA treatment for Potomac Fever works. What is supposed to chug along with reasonable predictability is influence peddling.
“Amazon Loses Effort to Exclude Jassy and Bezos from Testifying in FTC Prime Probe” seems to highlight an instance when events don’t go according to a plan. I learned from the allegedly real news CNBC story:
The Federal Trade Commission late Wednesday rejected Amazon’s bid to exclude CEO Andy Jassy and founder Jeff Bezos from testifying in a probe into the retail giant’s Prime program.
I can hear the “Commissioner, thank you for that question. I don’t know the complete answer. I will have the information you request sent to your office, etc, etc.”
Prime is a subscription or membership or a knock off of a low rent country club. Members get special treatment; for example, Thursday night football games, allegedly better-faster-cheaper delivery, and benefits at an Amazon grocery store like free delivery. Sorry, strike that free delivery for any Prime member. There’s even a page which explains what a member-subscriber-spender gets at this link and here.
The write up says:
The FTC has been investigating sign-up and cancellation processes for Amazon’s Prime program since March 2021. The agency is looking into whether Amazon deceives users into signing up for Prime, while failing to provide a simple way to cancel and avoid recurring charges. The Prime subscription program, which costs $139 a year and includes perks like free shipping, now has some 200 million subscribers worldwide. Amazon said last month it has been complying with the FTC’s requests so far, producing some 37,000 pages of documents.
I am curious about other Amazon business activities which may warrant some scrutiny; for example, certain interesting content on Twitch, products which appear to be from a well known “brand” but are slightly different from those in old fashioned stores, and the mechanisms for charging for certain functions on AWS.
Amazon Fire up the C-SPAN, get the popcorn, and tally the number of “thank you for the question” answers. Exciting. A bit late in the Monopoly game, but good theater.
Lobbyists will be watching to learn what to put in their next pitch to the Amazonians assigned to make this hearing stuff go away.
Stephen E Arnold, September 26, 2022
Amazon and Fake Reviews: Ah, Ha, Fake Reviews Exist
September 5, 2022
I read “Amazon’s Delay for the Rings of Power Reviews on Prime Video Part of New Initiative to Filter Out Trolls.” The write up makes reasonably official the factoid that Amazon reviews are, in many cases, more fanciful than the plot of Rings of Power.
The write up states:
The series appears to have been review bombed — when trolls flood intentionally negative reviews for a show or film — on other sites like Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an 84% rating from professional critics, but a 37% from user-submitted reviews. “The Rings of Power” has been fending off trolls for months, especially ones who take issue with the decision to cast actors of color as elves, dwarves, hand waves and other folk of Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth.
Amazon wants to be a good shepherd for truth. The write up says:
Amazon’s new initiative to review its reviews, however, is designed to weed out ones that are posted in bad faith, deadening their impact. In the case of “A League of Their Own,” it appears to have worked: To date, the show has an average 4.3 out of 5 star rating on Prime Video, with 80% of users rating the show with five stars and 14% with one star.
Interesting. My view is that Amazon hand waves about fake reviews but for those which could endanger its own video product. Agree with me or not, Amazon is revealing that fake reviews are an issue. What about those reviews for Chinese shirts which appear to have been fabricated for folks in the seventh grade? SageMaker, what’s up?
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2022
Online Bookstore and Health Services: No Problem
September 1, 2022
After getting a taste of delectable patient data, Amazon is ready to leap headlong into the healthcare field by purchasing primary-care service One Medical. What could go wrong? Time reporters Roger McNamee and Johnny Ryan answer that rhetorical question in, “Amazon’s Dangerous Ambition to Dominate Healthcare.” Amazon has repeatedly shown it cannot be trusted with personal information, despite its avowals to the contrary. Why would a trove of the most sensitive, and potentially lucrative, data be any different? The article observes:
“Recent scandals revealed that Amazon uses the data collected for supposedly innocent reasons in ways that betray our trust. Amazon staff say there are no limits on how Amazon uses this data internally. According to Amazon’s former head of information security: ‘We have no idea where our [freaking] data is.’ One Medical receives health information about children, families, the elderly, and vulnerable. That includes information about substance abuse, mental health issues, and other intimate conditions. We cannot be confident that Amazon will treat this new data any better than it has treated its existing data hoard. Our secrets are not safe inside Amazon. And it is not just consumers who are at risk. Other companies that compete with or sell through Amazon will almost certainly be harmed. Amazon uses data collected from one part of its business to help other parts. For example, it competes with retailers that sell on its platform by exploiting its insider data about their businesses. More data – especially intimate data – increases Amazon’s market power over consumers and competitors.”
There is one potential obstacle to this deal: the FTC has yet to approve it. The authors urge the commission to nip this especially troublesome tendril of surveillance capitalism now. It would be a welcome sign, they say, that the government is finally ready to protect citizens from big tech’s growing abuse of personal data. One can dream.
Cynthia Murrell, September 1, 20221
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