[HN Gopher] A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle...
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A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing
Author : _Robbie
Score : 2269 points
Date : 2021-06-30 04:18 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kleinbottle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kleinbottle.com)
| Trias11 wrote:
| Amazon stimulates fake reviews, fake listings and fake vendors.
|
| This practice has to stop.
|
| Gigantic class action suit is overdue for this fraudulent
| criminal empire.
| nullc wrote:
| You mean you don't remove your blackheads with a volumeless four
| dimension manifold?
| azinman2 wrote:
| I _really_ want a filter on Amazon for both where a product is
| manufactured as well as where the company exists. Basically I
| want to undo the Chinese-knockoffization of Amazon with all its
| complete dilution of all search results... let alone sad stories
| like this.
| [deleted]
| pjbeam wrote:
| Not sure if it will help but I escalated this internally. I work
| at AWS though and am certainly not in a position of great
| influence.
| ad-astra wrote:
| Hey, I'm from the photos org, how can I help +1 this?
| ad-astra wrote:
| Hey Cliff, I'll hop on the internal Amazon network tomorrow and
| figure out who I can talk to about this.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| Ad astra per aspera? !!
|
| Cheers, -Cliff
| lanstin wrote:
| I have a Klein Stein and it is excellent, both for beer and
| coolness. Cliff Stole's book on tracking a hacker is also a tour
| de force in tracking things back to the cause. And, like me, he
| was a stay at home parent for a long time.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you Lanstin!
|
| Stay-at-home parent? Oh, but your note brings smile to this
| tired astronomer's face...
| williesleg wrote:
| Ha! Asshole finally got hacked!
| lgats wrote:
| The trademark the foreign seller used to hijack the listing
| https://uspto.report/TM/90721592
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _A sleezy company hijacked my Amazon listing to move my positive
| reviews over to their product._
|
| I've seen that happen sometimes, and always wondered how or why
| it happened. Like I'll be reading reviews for a USB Memory stick,
| and the 5 star reviews rave about nail polish.
|
| I've reported these cases to Amazon, but they take no action.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| And when you report it to government agency in your country
| they say to talk to Amazon or stop using them.
|
| These too big to fail companies need to be split and held
| accountable!
|
| If they consciously let fraudsters operate, in my opinion they
| are complicit!
| maciekpaprocki wrote:
| Hi Cliff,
|
| First of all thank you for being you. I read about you week ago
| and then I went into a massive youtube binge of your videos. I
| had a bad day and needed a distraction and seriously your videos
| were uplifting, funny, educational and so binge worthy. Great
| stuff, highly recommended to anyone. Wish there would be more of
| them.
|
| From ecommerce perspective, don't care about amazon. I wouldn't
| say that for most business, but I am sure most of the clients
| buying from you actually know you as it's hard to search for
| klein bottle without without you popping up. It is first result
| above amazon in my google search and I would assume most of the
| sales on amazon were actually coming from people that first seen
| your website and just wanted to quick checkout.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My thanks to you Macie. I appreciate your smile and kindness -
| I hope you got more than your fill of my silly videos.
|
| You're right, of course: As others point out, mine is a hobby-
| business, and Amazon isn't the best place for it. Still, it was
| fun having a (small) presence there, even if most of my
| customer interaction happened through my Kleinbottle website.
|
| Having said this, I'll probably continue this zero-volume
| business out of my home; the cool thing is how many fascinating
| people I meet. Just a week ago, a mathematician stopped by and
| tried to teach me homotopy theory. Good stuff!
| lilyball wrote:
| I would really love to know why "Amvoom" could declare to Amazon
| that they own "Acme Klein Bottle" when "Acme Klein Bottle" has
| nothing to do with the "Amvoom" trademark. Can they just declare
| they own _any_ page that doesn 't have a registered trademark?
| mike_d wrote:
| Any valid trademark gets you in the door, then Amazon trusts
| that you exert your rights only over your brands.
|
| For example Anker could have a trademark on "Anker" (the brand)
| and then claim the "PowerCore III" listing for their battery
| pack without having to trademark the name of each product.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| In short, yes. If a seller (like me) has not trademarked
| his/her brand, and has not registered with Amazon's Brand
| Registry, then the listing can be hijacked. Of course,
| hijackers will only considers taking listings with many five-
| star reviews extending over several years.
| hippich wrote:
| Speaking from the experience - listing can be hijacked even
| if it has a brand registered trademark. These hijackers,
| rumored, are bribing amazon insiders to change trademark on
| the listing and gain full editing access to it after change
| is made.
| jmkd wrote:
| So, appalling scam aside, everyone knows what a Klein bottle is
| or what it does? First I've heard of it, and neither Stoll's site
| or the Amazon listing shed any light on the topic...just in-
| jokes.
| matsemann wrote:
| It is mainly a joke/gag product for mathematicians, or a cool
| office decoration. Nothing you would buy without the background
| knowledge.
|
| But second sentence in the listing:
|
| > Like a Mobius strip, this Klein bottle has only one side. In
| addition, a Klein bottle has no edge - the connection from
| "inside" to "outside" is smooth, and the bottle has no lip.
|
| Is proper descriptive.
| ratww wrote:
| There's a Wikipedia page:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle
| jcl wrote:
| I love that the "hand-blown" bottle pictured in the article
| is one of Cliff Stoll's.
| mbeex wrote:
| Buyed the real thing from his site (https://www.kleinbottle.com/
| as mentioned) 1.5 years ago. Much more to enjoy there anyway.
|
| Thanks Cliff & Greetings from Germany
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you M'Beex. You're why I make these one-sided things. (a
| tip of my hat, -Cliff)
| [deleted]
| thethought wrote:
| Sleazy company hijacked Cliff Stoll's Amazon Klein bottle
| listing.
|
| To me "foreign seller" implies Amazon sellers/buyers has some
| sort of national context?
|
| Note: I do feel bad hijacking happens in Amazon.
| vfclists wrote:
| Amvoom fraudulent page in Google webcache
|
| https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0UGfjt...
| binarysolo wrote:
| Given how this is on page-1 of HN, jeff@amazon (the elite US-
| based seller support team who uses the email, not Bezos) is gonna
| tear this AMVOOM / TaroRee hijacker a new one.
|
| While this is kinda designed-as-intended (Amazon wants you to
| brand register with them for protection), this is a pretty shitty
| dark pattern they put up and sadly it happens as an annoying edge
| case that existing sellers and customers have to deal with.
|
| Source: me, a mid-sized Amazon 3P seller/vendor.
|
| Edit: "-Cliff Stoll Saturday morning June 26, in Oakland,
| California. And yes, I am now trademarking Acme Klein Bottle."
| Looks like Amazon's getting what they want after all.
| avipars wrote:
| I wonder if they'll keep the email for when jeff steps down
| officially
| modeless wrote:
| Sure, but there are hundreds of other sellers ready to do the
| same exploits tomorrow, or worse. The systemic problems are not
| being addressed. Amazon doesn't have the right incentives to
| solve these issues.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Sigh. A trademark for a common item (like a T-shirt or a
| voltmeter) seems to cost about $350 through the USPTO, if you
| do it yourself and your goods are listed in their directory. If
| your goods are oddball (like glass or woolen nonorientable
| manifolds) then you have to use a more expensive system which
| starts at $450 and escalates depending on how many different
| types of goods you're trademarking.
| thechao wrote:
| Wait until your trademark is summarily rejected without
| reason & you have to get a lawyer for an hour to "call a
| friend" to get the mark amended.
| telesilla wrote:
| We had a tricky trademark submission recently and we were
| provided with a free attorney who was spectacular and very
| easy to work with. Your assessment matched my experience.
| binarysolo wrote:
| I'm sorry Cliff: the system sucks because there's a lot of
| edge case handling when they're dealing with millions of
| vendors selling literal hundreds of millions of SKUs.
|
| Many of them autogenerated programmatically like "I love X"
| shirts, and X = some dictionary list; or bots built to
| crosslist Target/Walmart product over to Amazon etc. for
| arbitrage etc.
|
| I hope someone from Amazon has reached out to you Cliff - my
| wife gifted my FIL one of your klein bottles and it's been an
| absolute delight going through the purchasing experience with
| you. Thank you for the joy you bring to us!
| Symbiote wrote:
| The system sucks because the income gained through dealing
| with millions of vendors selling literally hundreds of
| millions of SKUs is channelled into Amazon's profits,
| rather than people or systems to deal with the resulting
| problems.
| binarysolo wrote:
| It's actually worse I think: Amazon demands the people
| and systems to be better-on-metrics over time -- dealing
| with Seller Support is just a huge nightmare these days
| as a seller.
| blibble wrote:
| so it'll get removed, drop off the front page
|
| and 6 hours the scammer will be back under another account
| fmajid wrote:
| It takes some chutzpah to turn defense from your own willful
| negligence into a revenue center. Like telcos' telemarketer
| blocking services or Equifux offering credit monitoring
| services (only free for the first year) to the millions whose
| sensitive financial info they allowed to be breached.
| EricE wrote:
| "It takes some chutzpah to turn defense from your own willful
| negligence into a revenue center." It's not chutzpah - it's
| the norm for most tech companies - or any other companies
| who's primary product is intellectual property. Think patent
| trolls, copyright trolls, etc. Amazon is a product troll that
| somehow has managed to maintain a veneer of legitimacy.
|
| I see what they are doing no differently than what Steele
| started with Prenda law. Heck that's probably where Amazon
| got the idea :p
| barbazoo wrote:
| > jeff@amazon is gonna tear this AMVOOM / TaroRee hijacker a
| new one
|
| Sigh. The usual FAANG bs. Do nothing as long as it makes you
| money and do the minimum only if it caused enough outrage. No
| values, no ethics, 100% shallow.
| rfwhyte wrote:
| This isn't an Amazon bug, it's a feature. Amazon has known for
| YEARS about sleazy (Mostly Chinese) sellers manipulating reviews,
| paying for review and generally engaging in super shady
| practices, and Amazon has done literally NOTHING about it, so at
| this point we can reasonable assume they tacitly condone these
| practices.
|
| Amazon reviews have all but become useless as a result. Perhaps
| one of the least trustworthy corners on an increasingly trustless
| internet.
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| Is there someone here from Amazon that can actually do something
| about this?
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Guess I'd better say a few things.
|
| First, I deeply appreciate that so many on Hacker News have come
| out for this. Enough to awaken me from a sound sleep on a Tuesday
| evening!
|
| I don't really care that much about selling Klein bottles over
| Amazon - it's mainly to reach parents over the holidays. But I do
| wish that Amazon would do something about this kind of thing.
|
| Finally, I"m very low on stocks of glass Klein bottles. It's
| weird for me to ask my friends not to buy the things I've worked
| so hard to make, but I guess I'd better. I hope to have more
| manifolds in mid to late summer.
|
| Warm wishes all around,
|
| -Cliff (way late on a cloudy Tuesday evening in Oakland)
| meesterdude wrote:
| Hold lots of respect for you and regret that this has happened
| to you, but thanks for bringing these specifics to light.
| Amazon needs to fix this - or regulators need to force them to.
| randylahey wrote:
| Cliff, reading `The Cuckoo's Egg` in the 90's when I was in my
| early teens was a watershed moment in my life. Set me up upon a
| path of discovery and fascination with technology of all kinds.
| Countless thanks!
| astrange wrote:
| I was going to say, I don't think that's the message you were
| supposed to take from it, but it looks like he retracted his
| next book.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil
| blairanderson wrote:
| Hi Cliff, I'm an independent amazon consultant.
|
| Your Amazon problems would be solved with a regular USPTO
| trademark. They don't recognize common-law trademarks because
| they are heavily arguable in litigation.
|
| USPTO is a database of trademarks already scrutinized by
| trademark attorneys and government. It's not perfect, but it is
| a collection that Amazon recognizes.
|
| You can do this for $2000-ish and never think about it again.
|
| then GS1.org for barcodes
|
| Now you can sell your bottles in museum gift-shops!
| mfer wrote:
| It's kind of sad if the only way to stop having your item
| listing in Amazon from being hijacked is to trademark.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| I can save him the money...it would be highly unlikely the
| USPTO would grant a TM for "ACME Klein Bottle".
|
| In either case, or even in the case the was a seller
| legitimately infringing on a valid trademark, Amazon should
| not be reassigning reviews from one sellers product to
| another seller under these types of matters. How in the hell
| would that be beneficial to Amazon shoppers?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Indeed, "Klein bottle" is not descriptive of the origin,
| it's descriptive of the type of goods. Trademarks indicate
| origin and must do so distinctively to be registered.
|
| _This post is my own view, not legal advice, and unrelated
| to my employment._
| mrandish wrote:
| It's a shame that a small-time reseller like Cliff has to go
| to the trouble and expense to register a trademark to protect
| his listing (which I doubt Cliff will bother with).
|
| Until about 5-6 years ago the changes Amazon made almost
| universally made their service better and more pro-user
| convenience/efficiency. Since then it's really become a
| nightmare. I realize they are being abused by scammers who
| are scheming every way to subvert the system but as a
| technologist familiar with web tech and distribution, it's
| clear there are _some_ anti-consumer experience issues which
| Amazon _could_ fix but is choosing not to.
|
| For example, allowing vendors to list alternate "versions"
| which aren't really the same product at all. It makes it
| harder to tell what the star rating averages are for the
| version I actually want (and I have to sort reviews by
| version which is only accessible on a subpage. Frankly, I'd
| rather they just go back to one listing per product. Yes it's
| less useful for a hundred different sized machine screws but
| it seems like a major source of these issues.
|
| Then there's the nightmare of letting different sellers sell
| on the "same" product listing. Crap clone products flit in
| and out contaminating the integrity of reviews because a
| shoddy version slips in but only from one seller out of six
| or seven.
|
| As someone who deals with them everyday, do you think they
| are NOT doing some of the things they could to stop these
| issues due to strong incentives (Amazon makes more $$$
| allowing users to be frustrated), or do you think they are
| sincerely doing what they can (within reasonable costs) to
| solve these chronic issues? They used to understand that
| accuracy and transparency ultimately yield more sales (even
| if lower for an individual product). I'd like to believe
| Amazon didn't change their ethos from the early days, but...
| iratewizard wrote:
| Amazon is filled to the brim with predominantly Chinese
| scammers that they have shown no interest in stopping.
| Scams I've seen:
|
| - 2 pack scammers that sell someone else's product as a
| bundle, but it costs more to buy the 2 pack than it does to
| buy the real item twice.
|
| - Listing swaps, where someone will take a commodity
| listing with lots of reviews and change the listing to sell
| overpriced broken garbage
|
| - Counterfeiting or extreme product cheapening after a
| listing receives recommended status
|
| - A mountain of fake review schemes now including this.
|
| These bad actors don't contribute to the Amazon market.
| There's little reason not to ban them for ToS violations.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _These bad actors don 't contribute to the Amazon
| market. There's little reason not to ban them for ToS
| violations._
|
| These bad actors are optimizing for sales, and Amazon
| benefits from each sale on their marketplace. Their
| actions result in more money for the bad actors and for
| Amazon alike.
|
| It's a similar situation to VC-funded social media
| platforms turning a blind eye to bots and automation
| early on because bot activity increases growth and
| engagement metrics, both of which in turn can increase
| the platform's valuation in future funding rounds or an
| IPO.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| Funny you mention the 2-pack scammers. I was literally
| just looking for a center-post mounted bike seat for a
| child yesterday and noticed that exact scam. I thought to
| myself, "why would someone want a two pack of these bike
| seats?" Lo and behold the actual product cost less than
| half as much as the two pack. I didn't realize what was
| going on, just thought, "this doesn't seem legit" and
| bought a totally different item. Poor bike-seat
| manufacturer.
| wpietri wrote:
| Sure, that sounds good, banning scammers. But then
| important metrics would not go up and to the right.
| Metrics executives see! You can't just run around
| prioritizing the customer experience willy-nilly. Who
| knows what that would lead to?!? /s
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| When you scroll tho y the end of the reviews they have a
| link that says something like show reviews from other
| countries. If the reviews for different versions worked
| this way it might cut down on some of the version scamming.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Making the step from a hobby to a business means having to
| make the necessary investments, some of which may be costly
| and a pain in the ass, to protect one's intellectual
| property.
| fncypants wrote:
| I'm not sure why the parent was downvoted. The trademark
| scheme was built to make marketplaces more efficient, by
| giving producers a carve out in the conversation--a word
| or phrase or logo--so that they and consumers and
| distributors can engage together confidently with some
| bright line rules to work with.
|
| The alternative is anarchy, and much more expensive then
| filing for a trademark if you want to sell in the
| marketplace. Like insurance, everyone that wants to be in
| the market pays a little, so that it makes it easier to
| avoid something like this.
| speeder wrote:
| Except selling Klein bottles is a hobby, his actual
| business is teaching.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Oh yes, Speeder.
|
| Thank you! -Cliff
| saxonww wrote:
| I think it's ironic that you're saying he has to pay to
| run his business safely, when Amazon's set things up this
| way specifically because they don't want to pay to run
| their business safely.
|
| It's a little outrageous that a 3rd party can come take
| over your storefront without any avenue to challenge.
| gowld wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with Cliff's store front:
| https://www.kleinbottle.com
|
| The problem is in Amazon's storefront, and there millions
| of sellers are operating in the same space, so doing some
| due diligence is required. If Cliff could just seize
| ownership of his storefront from a thief, why couldn't a
| thief seize it from Cliff? The solution is to register a
| proper trademark.
|
| Like it or not, the world is messy, and it costs to keep
| it clean. Registering a trademark is like buying locks
| for your home and vehicle, and buying soap to wash your
| clothes, and changing the oils in your machines.
| jmcgough wrote:
| This logic assumes that it's cheap to get a trademark,
| whereas the parent says it'll cost $2000.
|
| This leaves small hobby stores like Cliff's with no
| practical defense against scams like this if they've only
| made a few thousand in profits through amazon sales,
| especially if they don't have that cash on hand (and
| suddenly lose their amazon revenue stream!)
|
| Like it's easy to say "well you should have trademarked
| your product" after the fact, but very few people have
| even heard of this scam when it happens to them.
| whelming_wave wrote:
| It's interesting that you say "some due diligence is
| required" and go on to put the burden of that diligence
| on Cliff, rather than the creator of the marketplace.
| worik wrote:
| The solution is for Amazon to be less horrid.
|
| There really are no polite words to describe business
| practices.
|
| Stop buying from Amazon. Quite easy actually.
| beprogrammed wrote:
| Exactly, stop buying from Amazon.
|
| There a software company running a software market, all
| the power is in there hands, and they choose to do
| nothing.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > USPTO is a database of trademarks
|
| No the United States Patent and Trademark Office is not a
| database of trademarks.
|
| It has one, though.
| hhh wrote:
| While this would probably _work_ , it seems insane to me that
| this would be the only thing to protect his listing from a
| _completely different category of product_ being merged with
| another.
| Accujack wrote:
| You're not wrong.
|
| Because Amazon's system is insane unless you realize it's
| designed only for the benefit of the corporation, not for
| any kind of fairness or quality.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Has there been a study on the volume of counterfeit goods
| flowing through amazon's marketplace?
|
| Seems likely they are now the #1 seller of counterfeit
| goods globally, by a decent margin.
| nr2x wrote:
| I'll bet a six pack of decent beer the % of all sales
| that are counterfeit goods is double digits.
| krferriter wrote:
| The success of Amazon retail is in part because of the
| ~feature~ of seamless, rampant IP infringement and zero
| legal or financial liability on the part of Amazon for
| making money off it.
| greyhair wrote:
| Which has gotten worse over time, and one of the several
| reasons why my Prime membership will not renew this year.
| cbsmith wrote:
| What's unfortunate is that _ideally_ fairness & quality
| should be in the interests of the marketplace.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Let's say that Acme is a low-down, dirty-rotten, rip-off
| con who has been usurping somebody else's trademark to make
| a quick buck with counterfeit merchandise.
|
| Why would Amazon merge the reviews of that product with the
| reviews of the authentic, high-quality, reputable Chinese
| vendor's actual product?
|
| Why does Amazon allow a "color" to point to a product from
| a completely different seller? Why does Amazon allow
| product aliases at all?
| spacemark wrote:
| ...or the fact that the only way to get this information is
| a HN comment from an independent Amazon consultant.
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| That shouldn't be required. Amazon should verify the seller.
| Scam sellers sell knockoff trademarked items everyday on
| Amazon. Trademark won't fix anything.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Do Amazon care about jurisdiction, UK registration is ~PS200,
| perhaps any registered trademark will get you recognised by
| Amazon [in all jurisdictions]?
|
| If someone is squatting one's trademark you can still sue
| them with an unregistered mark, and perhaps crucially if
| they're using Amazon then Amazon should be up for
| contributory infringement.
|
| _This is not legal advice and represents my personal views
| only._
| technothrasher wrote:
| I was thinking similarly, what about state trademarks? I've
| got a Massachusetts trademark because it was quick and
| easy, and cost only $50. My lawyer advised me that, while
| not as iron clad as a federal trademark, it would tend to
| discourage anybody else from filing federally on the mark
| because they'd do a search and mine would turn up and
| they'd rather pick a different mark than be limited in one
| state. I don't sell product on Amazon though, so I don't
| know if it would work in that instance.
| williesleg wrote:
| Go back to punched cards ass munch
| Qwertious wrote:
| Don't buy this guy's klein bottles, they're a scam - they're
| only THREE dimensional! Such a rip off. How am I supposed to
| store a y[?]og-so[?][?]th[?]o[?]t[?]h[?] in this thing?
| bobbyi_settv wrote:
| Worse, the klein bottles did nothing to remove my black heads
| Y_Y wrote:
| The classic Klein bottle is a 2D surface. It doesn't embed in
| R^3 regardless of whether you give it a little thickness so
| you can make it out of matter.
| pantulis wrote:
| Just remember to keep the formulaes for the descending node
| (or dragon's tail) handy.
| bawana wrote:
| Does anyone else see 10 vertical lines of characters that
| look like the 'matrix' font overlaid on the word 'yog so
| Thoth' in the last two lines of qwertious' post?
| technothrasher wrote:
| Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
| [deleted]
| gerdesj wrote:
| A small dog has just materialised and widdled on my foot.
| Please be careful when summoning the Old Ones.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| The Puppy of Tindalos! Ia!
| Stratoscope wrote:
| The four dimensional answer to this one dimensional
| question will also answer your question and many others:
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/
|
| Strangely, I had that very page open on my three
| dimensional computing device last night and it was still
| open just now.
|
| This Must Mean Something.
| kalleboo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalgo_text
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| no, it's just you.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| What post?
| temp0826 wrote:
| There are no antimemetic posts.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| yeah, but I see those everywhere... all the time!
| wffurr wrote:
| That's He Who Shall Not Be Named's hand reaching into the
| material world, making himself known to all who would dare
| parse HTML with regular expressions.
| teh_klev wrote:
| And signalling the immanentizing of Tony the Pony.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Do not speak his name.
| martyvis wrote:
| It's a Unicode trick
| https://lingojam.com/GlitchTextGenerator
| [deleted]
| neilpmas wrote:
| I do
| Grustaf wrote:
| No it's your space that's 3-dimensional. Just make sure to
| store your klein bottles in 4d space and they will be free of
| holes and self intersections.
| Vivtek wrote:
| This is what comes of neglecting the storage instructions.
| smoyer wrote:
| Cliff Stoll stores Klein bottles i in the crawl space under
| his house and manages his inventory with a frickin' robot.
| The head clearance seems a bit short for a4 4D space!
| lalaithion wrote:
| PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair And Klein bottle)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| how did you do that?
| sp332 wrote:
| Something like http://www.eeemo.net/
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Thanks for that helpful answer. Big no thanks to those
| people who downvoted a genuine curious question. I'm
| allowed to not know something.
| furyg3 wrote:
| Hey Cliff, I just have to say thanks. I read the Cuckoo's Egg
| in the early 90s and while I was already interested in
| computers, the idea that there were "networks" of them out
| there... well... it blew my mind.
|
| I immediately went to my school librarian and said I wanted to
| try to connect computers together, or try to dial-up to library
| information services, etc. We started learning together.
|
| You were a huge inspiration, thanks.
| queuebert wrote:
| That book changed my life.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Changed mine, too. Q-Bert.
| theelous3 wrote:
| Ha! I didn't know the klien bottle guy was the accounting
| error guy. That's very cool.
|
| Googled him there and he's listed as an astronomer. But the
| astronomers consider him a computer guy ;)
| cartoonworld wrote:
| You should read his book! He discusses this in the first
| chapter. He helped (or maybe solely) design the lens at W.
| M. Keck observatory, and you can see him on Numberphile a
| lot.
| _joel wrote:
| Definitely, I read it in a day it was so enthralling.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Took a year to write. Asynchronous I/O, I guess.
| bigiain wrote:
| So long as more than 365 people spent a day or more
| reading it, you got your revenge on the universe... ;-)
| JshWright wrote:
| One of my (very sincerely held) goals in life is to be as
| excited about _something_ as Cliff Stoll is about
| _everything_.
| Tepix wrote:
| Same here, my copy from 1989 is still on my bookshelf. Thanks
| for being inspiring!
| alexdean wrote:
| I just wanted to jump in and say the same thing. I had the
| hardback of the Cuckoo's Egg as a teenager in the 90s. Huge
| inspiration to me and I have worked in and around tech ever
| since. Thank you.
| cartoonworld wrote:
| There was also a television adaptation, "The KGB, the
| Computer, and Me" produced by PBS Nova in like 1992, starring
| Clifford Stoll as Cliff Stoll!
|
| Here is a bootlegged youtube link--it's the best I've got.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
|
| A legend!
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| Fascinating movie, thank you for linking to it! I loved to
| see what logging and tracing looked like back in the day.
| Looks a lot more fun than just dumping terabytes to S3. I
| also really enjoyed how stoked and energetic Cliff was
| about the whole thing. What a gem!
| belter wrote:
| Thank you for the link. Amazing. And Cliff as himself ! I
| read the book but just could not stop watching the
| documentary.
|
| Next time I am in Hannover will have to take a photo in
| front of the flat. It got a repaint though...
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@52.371627,9.7208921,3a,53.1y,1
| 3...
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Ooh ... I visited there way back when. Down where that
| bike is parked there was a coin-operated cigarette
| machine. And they sold Benson & Hedges ciggies (which
| were the passwords that the hackers had chosen). Sends me
| way back, Belter.
| apendleton wrote:
| It looks like archive.org also has it: https://archive.org/
| details/The_KGB_The_Computer_and_Me_1990
| MR4D wrote:
| That you are linking to a bootleg copy of video on this
| thread is...ironic, to say the least.
| adolph wrote:
| Well, it is unavailable on Amazon...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/KGB-Computer-Me-VHS/dp/B00004Y50L
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B000JLM0RQ/ref=atv
| _dp...
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Don't worry, I'm sure "AMVOOM The KGB, the Computer, and
| Me" will be listed anytime soon.
| beardyw wrote:
| I read it only last year. A brilliant and now historical
| book.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| Mind slightly blown. The Cookoo's Egg is a great book,
| Cliff is amazing to watch in the Klein Bottle videos, but
| I've only just realised they're the same person!
| rbanffy wrote:
| There's a movie about it, with Cliff Stoll himself on the
| lead role.
| incompatible wrote:
| There's a movie about the hacker: 23 - Nichts ist so wie
| es scheint.
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's true. I like both movies.
| noefingway wrote:
| a fantastic and inspirational read. also great cookie recipe!
| made them many times
| duxup wrote:
| There was a story about a guy who had a self published book. He
| was the only person printing / selling his book.
|
| Until someone showed up on amazon and sold it too, they just
| copied it and printed it themselves.
|
| The copied book is identical, cover and all, images in the
| Amazon listing too ... Amazon chose to do nothing.
| lazyant wrote:
| I have a similar issue; I have a $10 self published book on
| Amazon and somebody re-listed with an earlier (like 1900!)
| publication date, so it shows up first when looking for it
| and it's listed at like $100.
|
| I don't know who can fall for this in my case but I'm sure if
| they can they have probably done this at scale. When I search
| in Amazon I see a lot of results with wide range of prices so
| I'm sure some people are just counting on showing up on
| results, users being "lazy" and arbitraging the difference
| between their listing and the cheapest vendor.
| fourseventy wrote:
| He should just sue for copyright infringement.
| duxup wrote:
| IIRC: Amazon won't tell him who it is and he suspects it's
| just someone out of legal reach / as the book is just self
| published his legal resources are pretty limited.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Amazon are selling it; if it's tortuously acquired he can
| sue them.
|
| _My opinion, not legal advice._
| EricE wrote:
| Which is what the infringers hope - and the major engine
| driving much of Amazon's profits.
|
| Fraud.
|
| I remember when people used to (heck still do) get worked
| up about Walmart but those same people not only order
| from Amazon all the time, they even join B mans private
| club (Prime).
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You sue Amazon for contributory infringement. Subpoena
| for the number of fraudulent copies they sold and then
| press for triple damages plus all of your fees. Even if
| that number is tiny you'll cost them much more in legal
| bills.
| wpietri wrote:
| I'm not sure why I'd spend $50k forcing Amazon to spend
| $250k. They can play that game a lot longer than me.
|
| Honestly, all the stories in this thread make me very
| glad I canceled my Prime subscription. I still use Amazon
| occasionally, but now most of my purchases go direct.
| With the exception of books; there I order from my local
| bookstore.
| code_duck wrote:
| This borosilicate shortage sounds worrisome! I'm inactive now,
| but did boro flamework for ~20 years and just wanted to say as
| a fellow glassblower that I love what you do with glass.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| What about the following listing (first result for the search
| "acme klein bottle" ) :
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YWM31V4 by "Brand: Cradle & Dew"
|
| "Kleinverse Exquisite Glass Klein Bottle, Handmade Math &
| Science Education Vase, Mobius Strip Glass Display for Gifts,
| Geometry Decoration & Theorem Glass - Collab with Mr Cliff
| Stoll" $74.90 + shipping
|
| How linked to you is this ? Are these just reselling your
| products or are they independently made ?
|
| Edit : In the description it states "These Klein bottles are
| proudly designed in Singapore, The Garden City".
| zwaps wrote:
| Seems they are also ripping off his product descriptions.
|
| Anything that can be done to get these people off of amazon?
| atatatat wrote:
| Get it to affect their revenue somehow (people used to do
| boycotts for things like this, but now everything is one
| company, so what do we do?)
| jfk13 wrote:
| I was going to ask about this too -- my suspicious nature
| immediately thinks they're improperly taking advantage of
| Cliff's name to promote their product. But maybe there's a
| genuine collaboration and it's all above board?
| atlanta90210 wrote:
| Big fan sir - thank you for all you have done and continue to
| do.
| prepend wrote:
| Thanks for your book.
|
| A friend recommended it to me as a "beach book" and I bought it
| not knowing anything about it. Best beach book ever.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Much love, I've read your site through, often times out loud to
| family and coworkers. GL w/ Amazon. Minor nitpick. The link to
| go back to top of page at the bottom of
| https://kleinbottle.com/ links to index.htm and not index.html
| and is thus a 404. I guess you could just link it to / or
| ideally change <body bgcolor="#fff"> to <body id="top"
| bgcolor="#fff"> and link to <a href="#top"> to avoid a new page
| load.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| (if anyone's wondering, now fixed )
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Fixed, because of your help and advice. >Thank you!< -Cliff
| (who stumbles over .htm and .html files)
| shostack wrote:
| Just wanted to say while your bottles are awesome, your under-
| house storage and retrieval system is the stuff of my childhood
| dreams and my claustrophobic adult nightmares.
|
| How did you go about designing it? Was it fairly organic? Or
| did you have the full plan from the beginning?
| [deleted]
| ggerules wrote:
| Cliff, Thanks for being in this world. I still own my hardback
| copy of "The Cuckoo's Egg" from 30 some odd years ago. I also
| talk about the events that unfolded in that book to my
| students! It's a great story!
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I love my Klein bottle earrings, there so tiny! Thanks Cliff!
| js2 wrote:
| You signed a copy of _The Cuckoo 's Egg_ for me, oh, maybe 30
| years ago, which I still own. I just wanted to say thank you
| for being a positive inspiration in my life.
|
| Hot ziggitty!
|
| https://ibb.co/8jy12Z8
|
| https://ibb.co/Nxt7V6j
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Jay - that looks surprisingly like my signature. Wonder who
| counterfeited it... Cheers, -Cliff
| jayspell wrote:
| Cliff I love your website, it makes me all nostalgic for the
| internet of the 90's / early 2000's - full of personality and
| humor.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| My reciprocal appreciation to Fury, Atlanta/n, and Meester (and
| my many other friends on Hacker News).
|
| I deeply appreciate the kindness and support of the hacker
| community - sends me back thirty five years to when I was
| fooling with a Unix workstation and stumbled on a small
| accounting error. Back then, I was surprised by the outpouring
| of help, suggestions, and collaboration from other computer
| folk.
|
| At this moment, I again thank this community -- across decades
| and across the globe, I'm heartened and happy to be one of the
| gang.
|
| Warm wishes all around, -Cliff
| cwkoss wrote:
| You seem like a really cool and interesting person, Cliff.
|
| Do you still use the RC mini forklift for storage? I've
| always thought that seemed like a lot of fun.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg6woZULFeM
| cowmix wrote:
| When I had my little ISP in the early 90s, Cliff's book was
| given to every new customer for the first few years.
| smithza wrote:
| Cliff, if you ever read this, I have a computer science book
| club that could use reading suggestions. Thoughts? Anything
| from management to best practices ... we will be adding your
| seminal work to our list too :)
| omgJustTest wrote:
| Their blackhead remover product might be brand hijacking, but
| their ACME Remover Product! it's the real deal. Just see this
| review of their product:
|
| "100% success at removing ACME (Klein bottles) from some
| kids, parents, even works on some websites!" -Cliff Stoll (He
| did not say this, its a joke!)
| kabbalf wrote:
| Hey Cliff, just wanted to say that the Klein bottle I bought in
| 2014 or so is the best buying experience I've ever had. It's
| still the only piece of home decoration I own. Thanks!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Many thanks, indeed, Kabb. I hope the manifold is still
| working after, uh, seven years. (You're aware, of course,
| that it's covered by my exclusive 1,000,000 year guarantee.)
| amluto wrote:
| Have you considered filing an FTC complaint? The new FTC
| commissioner actually seems to care about these things.
| silexia wrote:
| I second this!
| lopis wrote:
| So in 2015 [1] you said you ordered enough bottles for about 10
| years, but you're already running out? That's quite the success
| story you have there!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Lopis, you're right. Forward planning has never been my
| strong suit, and backward planning doesn't seem to work for
| me. There are some smart people in the world who can predict
| demand. Not me!
|
| And, about twenty minutes ago, I ran out of large Klein
| bottles. It'll be September before I can get more, what with
| shortages of borosilicate glass.
| [deleted]
| chx wrote:
| A mathematical side note: I might be woefully ignorant but I
| thought it's not possible to make a Klein bottle in the real
| world...?
|
| This is not to belittle Stoll's work, it might be a model or
| approximation... or I'm just missing something.
| cperciva wrote:
| You are correct. Stoll makes a projection of Klein bottles into
| 3-space which results in them being self-intersecting.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Yep, exactly.
| onion2k wrote:
| _I might be woefully ignorant but I thought it 's not possible
| to make a Klein bottle in the real world...?_
|
| I think Cliff Stoll sells 3D models of Klein bottles rather
| than the impossible 4D version.
| fortran77 wrote:
| The 4D version is not impossible in 4D space.
| taneq wrote:
| Now you've got me wondering if it'd be possible to build a
| 4D klein bottle by animating a 3D shape.
| jcl wrote:
| I imagine you could, and that it might not even be that
| exciting...
|
| Since a Klein bottle is just a cylinder with its ends
| glued together a particular way, I think one way to sweep
| out a Klein bottle through time would be to have a rubber
| band split into two, then have each band travel along a
| trajectory that brings them back together with the
| correct orientation. The self intersection is easily
| avoided by having one of the bands travel faster than the
| other.
| onion2k wrote:
| _The self intersection is easily avoided by having one of
| the bands travel faster than the other._
|
| They'll still meet up again. It'll just take more
| revolutions to get there. That doesn't avoid it.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| An experimental test for N-D space string theories then!
| greatgib wrote:
| @CliffStoll : fyi, at the bottom of the linked page on your
| website there is a link "TOP OF PAGE" that is broken!
|
| It goes to a not found page.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Sigh -- the price of maintaining a very antique, hand-coded
| website. (blush)
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Fixed. it had pointed to index.htm (wow - that's an oldie).
| notananthem wrote:
| Amazon: _wrings hands_ HOW DO WE STOP MALICIOUS SELLERS?
| xvector wrote:
| These days I avoid Amazon where possible since so often it's just
| cheap Chinese knockoffs or obviously returned products sold as
| new.
|
| B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no tax
| with their card. Crutchfield/Headphones.com has been great for
| speaker and audio gear. West Elm has a consistently premium
| quality for kitchen, home, and furniture items (though furniture
| is a story of its own, with even better vendors.)
| Walmart/Target/BestBuy have been good for everything else.
|
| If you're too lazy to figure out yourself which products are
| quality, Wirecutter, NyMag, and Consumer Reports all perform
| unbiased testing of multiple products in almost every product
| segment I can think of.
|
| And for simply next-level quality, nothing beats DIY. Personalize
| the final product exactly to your specifications, choosing the
| highest quality or even custom-machined parts with zero cost
| cutting. Requires time and passion, however.
| spyspy wrote:
| If you're shopping for furniture I've found Room & Board to be
| head and shoulders above the rest, in both quality and customer
| care. No questions asked free returns are a godsend.
| xvector wrote:
| Indeed! Design Within Reach and AllModern are also quite good
| for that mid-century modern aesthetic.
| fmajid wrote:
| Nope. All my Room & Board furniture bought 10 years ago
| turned out to be duds, as I reviewed on Yelp 3 years ago:
|
| Don't be fooled by the glitzy showrooms and "made in America"
| promises of quality, this chain sells essentially disposable
| furniture. When we were expecting our first child 7 years
| ago, we moved from an apartment to a single-family home. We
| wanted to also upgrade from IKEA and equivalent to proper
| furniture. I bought some heirloom pieces from Thos. Moser (a
| dining table, two end-chairs, a coffee table, a rocking chair
| and two foot stools) but they are quite expensive, and we got
| many other pieces from Room and Board: a queen bed,
| nightstands, two dressers, six Thatcher dining chairs, Pisa
| leaning bookshelves, side tables and a coffee table with
| rounded angles). Unfortunately after 7 years the furniture
| turned out to be much less durable than I expected. The
| finish on the coffee table is worn and ugly, the bed required
| extensive work even though we only use a mattress, no
| boxsprings, and the spokes on the Thatcher chairs are coming
| unglued. A proper Windsor chair like the Thatcher should have
| "through-holed and wedged" construction that ensures the
| spokes don't move. The Moser chairs have that, of course, and
| in retrospect I deeply regret cheaping out. I could have
| bought 2 buy-it-for-life Moser chairs for the price of the 6
| Thatcher chairs that are now essentially kindling. To add
| insult to injury, Room and Board refuses to stand by their
| product and are refusing to repair them. In the Bay Area,
| we've had good luck with Hoot Judkins furniture, which are
| better quality for the price (not all though, they have a
| wide range that goes from meh to Amish-grade).
| stephencanon wrote:
| Yeah, Thos. Moser is lovely and rock-solid stuff, but $$$$
| and a very specific aesthetic, which you either like or you
| don't (we have some Moser stuff in our bedroom, but not in
| the rest of the house because it's not a great fit style-
| wise).
|
| We have Carl Hansen & Son dining table and chairs, which is
| a considerably more modern look but still very solid
| (noticeably more so than most DWR stuff), but again, $$$$
| and a special order from Europe that took ~16 weeks.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > B&H has been a godsend for tech
|
| Let's hope they don't go the marketplace route while chasing
| growth. Shopping on Amazon feels like late 90s eBay, guessing
| whether or not the seller is going to screw you.
| techrat wrote:
| > Let's hope they don't go the marketplace route while
| chasing growth.
|
| I'm already hearing complaints about how B&H "isn't what they
| used to be" because they're selling much more than their
| original scope of audio visual equipment.
| zmix wrote:
| > [...] feels like late 90s eBay, guessing whether or not the
| seller is going to screw you.
|
| Has that become any better?
| tomnipotent wrote:
| I made a recent purchase for some networking equipment, but
| the seller had 1k+ positive ratings in the last year.
| Honestly, I ran across a lot of the same sellers on eBay as
| I did Amazon (since eBay now sells a lot of new stuff).
| awslattery wrote:
| +1 for Crutchfield, a great price match/protection policy, and
| support that is responsive yet not overbearingly so.
|
| I would also add rtings.com; they do a great job of documenting
| their process and the results themselves from their reviews
| with incredible detail.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I've been doing the same thing for a few years now and for the
| same reasons. I have accepted the fact in most cases I will pay
| more, but at least for that extra cost, I can trust the sites
| and the companies I'm buying from. I also try and find
| something locally first, before heading to larger chain stores.
|
| Perfect example is how I don't buy anything Apple on Ebay
| anymore. WAY too many fakes, stolen or misrepresented stuff on
| there now. Hard to get away from all the Chinese resellers
| there either. I just buy directly from Apple. Yeap, its going
| to cost a little extra, but I can take comfort knowing its not
| going to be a fake or get something that was completely
| misleading in the listing.
| aikinai wrote:
| I know most people here are in the US, but for anyone in Japan,
| check out Yodobashi as an Amazon alternative. They have more
| curated products and deliver most items the same day in the
| Tokyo area for free with no subscription.
|
| It's incredible you can have one tiny part delivered within
| hours for free. I feel bad doing that though, so I always try
| to cluster my orders just to be nice to their delivery people
| and the environment.
| NavinF wrote:
| Google Shopping Express used to do that in San Jose. I once
| ordered a toy spring for $3 with free shipping and had it
| delivered in 2 hours so I could use it as a heater coil. Good
| times
|
| Within a couple of months they changed the policy to $75
| minimum for free shipping. There are also fewer delivery
| slots today relative to demand
| z0xz0xz0x wrote:
| Headphones.com is great!
| xvector wrote:
| 1-year return policy, fast customer support, and no tax! I
| love them.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Free returns. The sellers eat that. It's dumb and lazy buyers
| buying junk and not holding them accountable for the
| smabie wrote:
| I'm lazy and dumb it's true, but I like ordering off of
| Amazon for most things. I just don't really care about the
| 99% of things I am forced to buy in order to live a somewhat
| comfortable existence. The most important thing I optimize
| for is own time, and for that, Amazon is great.
|
| That said, if you care about quality/stuff you buy a lot more
| than I do, Amazon is a pretty terrible place to shop most of
| the time. I've encountered this when I want to buy nice
| stuff, for example a nice and expensive wooden desk. Seems
| like that's pretty impossible to do on Amazon, as cheap
| garbage seems to be the name of the game.
| xvector wrote:
| To be fair, all the vendors I listed do free returns.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| > B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no
| tax with their card.
|
| Wait, explain this for me?
| xvector wrote:
| The B&H PayBoo card gives you a discount on their store
| equivalent to your state's tax. It's saved me thousands.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Exactly right. Watching Ebay and Amazon converge on being
| "Aliexpress" has really made me sad. I understand the folks who
| are measuring themselves by how effectively they promise
| quality and deliver crap to their customers. I understand their
| goal is maximum profit as their best score. And I understand
| that enough of the market doesn't care that it is crap that
| they prefer this over a quality good.
|
| Back when Walmart started and everyone was all about "wow,
| their prices are great!" and nary a mention of their quality. I
| realized that Walmart was going to do the same thing to
| groceries.
|
| Without re-invigorating the UCC with stronger consumer
| protections so that the "costs" are born not individually by
| consumers but by the market maker who pushes an inferior
| product, I don't see it getting much better.
| microtherion wrote:
| That does not seem a fair characterization of AliExpress,
| which does not commingle inventory, does not allow review
| hijacking, and where, in my experience, sellers usually are
| quite accommodating about settling disputes on reasonable
| terms.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| >> Aliexpress
|
| I used to buy a lot of cheap things on there, then something
| interesting started happening. Every time I made a purchase
| on there, literally a few weeks later, I would start getting
| fraudulent charges on my card. Thank god, my bank would call
| and ask, "Are you in Paris France right now? Someone just
| tried to purchase 3,000 euros worth of clothing on your
| card."
|
| I haven't bought anything on there for about 5 years now and
| remarkably as soon as I stopped buying stuff off of their
| site, I have yet to have my cc number end up on some carders
| market and deal with getting a new credit card.
|
| I also did some research and found out many, many, many
| people have had the same issues with bad charges showing up
| on their card after making purchases on that site.
| mkl wrote:
| I don't think I've had that problem, having bought
| literally hundreds of things from AliExpress. Were the
| fraudulent charges from AliExpress or other companies?
| Animats wrote:
| Yes. I was annoyed when Bank of America discontinued the
| feature that allowed me to create a single-used credit card
| number and fund it with a limited amount of money. That was
| a good solution to the bogus charges problem. But it was so
| hidden on the BofA site that few used it.
|
| I'd like to have that service back.
| xvector wrote:
| Privacy.com has been awesome for this and integrates with
| 1Password.
| Animats wrote:
| I wouldn't trust Privacy.com with money. Read their terms
| and conditions. They're much worse than the normal
| obligations of a bank issuing credit cards. They disclaim
| responsibility for mistakes and fraud. And they charge 3%
| extra for doing that.
| megous wrote:
| I've made hundreds of orders there for all kinds of
| electronic components over 8 years, and I had one lost
| package and one seller trying to sell badly refurbished
| power adapter, and maybe one or two fake Samsung uSD cards
| (died in 2 years of "constant" use in a SBC, which is a bit
| too soon). No card issues whatsoever (I never click "save
| the card" for later use).
|
| Buying things from ax was great for me as someone with EE
| as a hobby.
| infogulch wrote:
| I don't know how this can be solved with regulation though.
| What is "superior" about the better product? Tolerances?
| Documentation? Customer service? The ineffable reflection of
| the divine? (...) As soon as you put a target on any of those
| measures Goodhart's law rears its ugly head. This strategy is
| like trying to grab a greased ball bearing with a pair of
| tweezers.
|
| The most efficient way for the customer to compare the
| relative value of two products is for the quality to be
| factored into the price exactly, with all externalities
| realized up front. But how to design such a scheme that isn't
| instantly gamed into oblivion is unclear to me.
|
| It's like the value we're looking for is the depth of it's
| "truth", if you grant me poetic license to use that phasing,
| but that definition is not specific enough to be actionable.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Regulating warranties and 'fitness for purpose' are both
| ways in which the state can enforce a level of
| quality/reliability on the manufacture of goods.
|
| As an example, let's say your jurisdiction decides to make
| the following requirements on the manufacturers of food
| refrigerators;
|
| 1) The refrigerator must have a working lifetime of no less
| than 10 years from the date of sale, when maintained per
| the manual.
|
| 2) Repair parts for the refrigerator must be available for
| 20 years past the date of the last sale of the refrigerator
| to a resale outlet.
|
| 3) Information on the serviceability and repair of the
| refrigerator must be available to any party for a
| reasonable and non-discriminatory cost.
|
| Those regulations say nothing about how much you can
| charge, how you manufacture it, or how you differentiate it
| from your competitors, they just make a requirement that
| the person who buys it can rely on it for 10 years and that
| if it breaks you must repair or replace it to give them the
| full 10 year lifetime they expected when they bought it.
|
| What that does is force choices in design, manufacturing,
| and materials that reduce cost at the expense of expected
| lifetime back on to the manufacturer. As a result they gain
| no advantage by using cheaper stuff that fails more readily
| to get a cheaper price to "undercut" the guys who make the
| 10 year refrigerator.
| ElViajero wrote:
| > If you're too lazy to figure out yourself which products are
| quality
|
| Amazon is a gambling company. People buys things with the hope
| that, this time, they are getting a bargain. And, as any
| gambling company, the customers will lose in the long term.
|
| But, people gets addicted to gambling. Maybe next item, maybe I
| will do a smart purchase. The more randomized the experience
| the more irrational the consumer.
|
| I prefer traditional business that follow regulations and are
| subjects to my country laws. I used Amazon when it started,
| because they had a great recommendation engine for books. Even
| that is now a shitshow that offers you what Amazon wants to
| sell regardless of what you look for.
|
| Amazon works as intended, and that is terrifying.
|
| p.d.: People is not lazy. It is just that most people are not
| experts on the products that they purchase, and they are
| already spending a lot of their time working hard and taking
| care of their families to add another ten hours of
| investigation to purchase a pair of shoes.
| jamestnz wrote:
| I stumbled upon an unusual policy when trying to order from B&H
| the first time. They are not open for business on Shabbat (NYC
| local time), and this includes their online checkout!
|
| I could fill up my cart, but had to come back later to do my
| purchase.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Woah, I did not know B&H was an orthodox institution! That's
| quite neat.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Very much so.
|
| It's an amazing retail space. They have this awesome
| overhead rail system for delivering goods, and their
| checkout resembles customs at an airport (a bit
| disconcerting).
| nanidin wrote:
| It's a bit strange because if you go to actual Israel, there
| are ways around Shabbat rules that align with the
| Torah/Talmud. For example, on Shabbat, there is an elevator
| that stops at every floor (so no one has to push the button).
|
| It's also my understanding that it's kosher for gentiles to
| perform actions outside of the constraints of the rules of
| Judaism, like turning on/off fans on behalf of those
| respecting the rules of the sabbath.
| amscanne wrote:
| > there are ways around Shabbat rules that align with the
| Torah/Talmud
|
| As with any religious practices, there's a wide spectrum of
| how people follow or don't follow the doctrine. There's no
| shortage of Rabbis who have haggled over the fine details
| of how they apply to modern society, like your elevator
| example.
|
| Personally, I like the idea of aligning and adapting the
| general intent as opposed to rule hacking, and it's neat to
| leave that cultural stamp on the business (at some cost,
| I'm sure).
| wyldfire wrote:
| I respect people's religions but adherence to constraints
| like these -- to the extent that the automatons cannot even
| work -- are silly.
| fmajid wrote:
| They used to do transactions on Shabbat, then they stopped,
| presumably the Satmar Hasidic rabbi must have issued a
| ruling that it wasn't allowed.
|
| Sure, it's a minor annoyance, but compare that with the
| nontheistic amorality of Amazon and their everything-goes
| train wreck of a marketplace (worse than eBay at its worst)
| and you'll understand why I only buy my computers,
| electronics and photo gear from B&H.
| neilv wrote:
| IIUC, it's a religious/cultural observance that's very
| important to them, I think a kind of reminder. I'd say
| respecting that means respecting that.
|
| Also, I _loved_ B &H when I was seriously into photography,
| and even if the closed days had been a practical
| inconvenience (they weren't, IME), it would've still been
| worthwhile.
|
| Speculating... Maybe something in the culture of dutiful
| adherence also helped them to provide such well-respected
| service at great prices? Diversity is good.
| fortran77 wrote:
| You can't say you respect my religion and then call me
| silly at the same time. Perhaps you're the one that's
| silly.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Silliness and respect are mutually exclusive?
| hanche wrote:
| I think respect is for people, not religions. I don't
| even know what it means to respect a religion, unless you
| adhere to it. Respect for people includes respecting
| their right to practice their religion, even if you think
| it is silly. That respect also means you don't go out of
| your way to point fingers and laugh at every opportunity,
| but not the obligation to keep your opinion secret
| either. Due respect can be a difficult balancing act
| sometimes.
| vincnetas wrote:
| Let's take this to extreme. Commandment "Thou shalt not
| kill", would it be ok to let automatons kill instead of you
| and this would not be considered sin? (playing devils
| advocate)
| taneq wrote:
| If the ONLY reason you're not killing people is the fifth
| of the Ten Commandments then we have bigger issues than
| "are sentry turrets OK".
| Qwertious wrote:
| Building (and activating) a machine that's designed to
| kill, obviously violates the "thou shalt not kill" and
| makes you an attempted murderer the moment you activate
| it. But the actual moment of killing? You're literally
| not doing that (you could be sleeping or have forgotten
| about the machine, at the moment it first kills).
|
| Similarly, _building the e-commerce machine_ obviously
| can 't be done on the sabbath, but if it's already
| running then you're not actually working.
|
| For example, suppose you push a rock off a huge cliff. If
| the rock tumbles for a full week after you push it, were
| you pushing it off a cliff for the full week (including
| the sabbath)? Or did you only push it the one time on a
| tuesday?
| sombremesa wrote:
| Well, the website being up and somewhat usable means the
| automatons are working. Makes this policy even more
| nonsensical.
| frereubu wrote:
| A friend of mine worked with some Plymouth Brethren who
| wouldn't use computers, but had a stationery company. They
| employed someone else to build them a website and run it,
| then print out the orders and hand them over. I've not heard
| of a religious order that didn't even want to allow people
| outside the order to "break" the rules. Although perhaps it's
| something about money ending up in their bank account?
| xvector wrote:
| True. B&H is sort of unusual in this regards, but from what I
| hear their employees are treated well, and the lack of tax is
| well worth it!
| spoonjim wrote:
| Note that B&H has been sued for discriminating against its
| non-Jewish employees:
|
| https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/new-lawsuit-claims-b-and-h-
| disc...
| xvector wrote:
| That's horrible. Thanks for letting me know!
| vtail wrote:
| Could you please clarify what do you think is horrible?
| Anyone can sue anyone in the US, for any reason, and
| allege a lot of bad things. It also true that cost of
| litigation is often much, much higher than a settlement -
| e.g. the 3 employee suing asked for $200k in damages,
| which I assume is just an opening offer. A reasonable
| lawyer can easily cost upwards of $500/hr, and require
| many, many hours of work even if the process never gets
| to the court.
|
| My close friend is been sued for ridiculous reasons by
| ex-partners. It already costed him $750k in legal
| fees,and although he is very likely to win the case, it's
| expected to take another 2 years before the case is
| resolved, at which point he will be allowed to file for
| recovering his costs (easily anothe couple of years).
| Rantenki wrote:
| It's not a mere allegation, they lost a similar suit
| about hispanic employees, and had a HUGE settlement
| ruling against them: https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-
| and-b-h-reach-43-million-...
|
| They've been proven to discriminate, in a court of law.
| I'd give this new lawsuit the benefit of the doubt.
| vtail wrote:
| Thank you, this is important context I was not aware of,
| although to be fair, these events happened 10 years prior
| to the new case.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| >Could you please clarify what do you think is horrible
| [about an employee discrimination lawsuit]?
|
| I wonder why so many forum users frame statements they
| want to make as questions which challenge innocent
| comments.
| gilrain wrote:
| There is a term for it: JAQing off. Just Asking
| Questions. It's used to put forward a distasteful
| argument without actually standing behind it.
|
| As in, "Why are you getting heated? I'm not condoning
| [whatever], I'm just asking questions."
| vtail wrote:
| You may well think so, but I was asking an honest
| question. I don't think it's distasteful to doubt any
| allegations, esp. when missing some context, in this
| case, 10 years old judgement against B&H.
| spoonjim wrote:
| But you should probably examine why you were so quick to
| assume that the allegations were baseless.
| cfqycwz wrote:
| Fwiw there has been some history of B&H workers being
| treated fairly not-well. I encourage reading past the first
| few paragraphs of this article as it's not all "union
| stuff"--there are lawsuits, DOL complaints, and OSHA fines
| as well:
|
| https://gothamist.com/news/bh-photo-workers-strike-on-may-
| da...
| ixtli wrote:
| Thank you for pointing this out. I live in the area and
| showed up for the pickets when they fired all of their
| warehouse employees for complaining about unsafe working
| conditions.
|
| If possible use Adorama or some competitor.
| xvector wrote:
| Interesting, thank you!
| DenverCode wrote:
| Regarding headphones.com, I just ordered a pair of HD6xx
| headphones off drop.com and it was an amazing experience as
| well.
| tomaskafka wrote:
| > Wirecutter, NyMag, and Consumer Reports all perform unbiased
| testing of multiple products in almost every product segment I
| can think of. Oh no, they absolutely don't. Wirecutter performs
| some subjective testing, but they get paid for a choice of a
| products to test and promote. If you watch any category for a
| while, you can witness a top product (or multiple top products
| of a same brand) disappear overnight to be be replaced without
| a trace by another 'reviewer's favourite'. What did change
| overnight? Did Anker stop making the best budget chargers? No,
| their business deal with Wirecutter just expired and another
| brand took their place in paying for 'independent review'.
| larrybud wrote:
| That's a pretty strong accusation to make. Do you have
| evidence?
|
| Wirecutter says "our writers and editors are never made aware
| of or influenced by which companies have affiliate
| relationships with our business team."
|
| And elsewhere on the site: "The reputation of Wirecutter and
| its parent company, The New York Times, rests on our vigorous
| reporting, editorial integrity, and avoidance of actual or
| even perceived conflicts of interest."
|
| Are you saying this is a lie / outright deception?
|
| And, fwiw, they indeed still review & recommend Anker
| changers; see this review where the #1 choice is currently an
| Anker model: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-
| multiport-us...
| curation wrote:
| I blame Zizek and his 2020 book Sex & the Failed Absolute who
| link unorientables (klein bottle, crosscap and Mobius) to
| unfinished human subjectivity.
| giggly_gopher wrote:
| I got the baby Klein bottle from Cliff years ago. Nice little
| nerd tchotchke for the mantelpiece. He also wrote an awesome
| account of a KGB internet hacking from in the 80s:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book)
| mtnGoat wrote:
| One more piece of proof Amazon lost its soul in the pursuit of
| the all mighty dollar. Maybe federal court will help then find it
| again.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I went to Amazon.com, searched for a Acme Klien Bottle and got a
| "Cradle and Dew" brand bottle "collab with Mr Cliff Stoll."
|
| Not a "blackhead" remover. I'm confused. Is that not Cliff's
| bottle?
|
| EDIT: Apparently it has been fixed. Still, WTF, Amazon?
| Willson50 wrote:
| You can see the old link on Google still
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Klein+Bottle+amazon
| kgeist wrote:
| Why does it matter that it's a foreign seller? The title sounds a
| little xenophobic.
| mard wrote:
| It matters because you could sue a domestic seller for
| trademark infringement. It's much harder to do so if the seller
| is under jurisdiction where US trademark law does not apply.
| mrcodedude wrote:
| https://smile.amazon.com/Acme-Klein-Bottle-Handmade-Glass/dp...
|
| I think this is the item.
| varenc wrote:
| Direct link to buy one from Cliff Stoll on Amazon:
| https://www.amazon.com/Acme-Klein-Bottle-Handmade-Glass/dp/B...
|
| (but you should actually buy from his website)
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thank you Mr. Varenc and Mr. Code, Yes, that's what's left of
| what used to be my Amazon Klein bottle listing. Note that
| what used to be Klein Bottle by Cliff Stoll is now Amvoom
| Klein Bottle. Although I created the listing 4 or 5 years
| ago, I'm now unable to edit or change the listing. I've
| bumped up my price sufficiently high, in hopes that nobody
| will buy from there.
| techrat wrote:
| Seems you got Amazon's attention. Both links are broken and
| searching for Amvoom Klein Bottle results in nothing
| relevant.
| dflock wrote:
| That sucks. Nice write-up of how this scam works, I wasn't aware
| of the details previously.
|
| Also, if anyone is unaware, this is this Clifford Stoll:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Stoll - who wrote this
| brilliant (and true) book:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book) - which
| is a really good read and perfect for HN.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thanks, DFlock. As you realize, writing up what happens is a
| necessary part of fixing a problem. That's why I wrote Cuckoo's
| Egg. I'm gratified that my own community has responded; perhaps
| someone at Amazon will pick up on this.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| A minute ago, I added a few more details to my website-
| writeup.
| renw0rp wrote:
| I've read your book a couple of years ago. When I saw your
| name on hacker news I thought it sounded familiar!
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| There's this documentary about him too: "The KGB, the Computer,
| and Me" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGv5BqNL164
| mprovost wrote:
| His TED talk is amazing, his energy for learning is so
| infectious. I just meant to post the link here but had to watch
| the whole thing again!
|
| https://www.ted.com/talks/clifford_stoll_the_call_to_learn?l...
| indigodaddy wrote:
| There's a Cliff Stoll Ted Talk!?? I've read the book and
| watched the complimentary PBS side piece, but wasn't aware of
| a ted talk, thanks!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Sigh - sends me back 15 years or so.
|
| I'd prepared a 1 hour talk. When I was about to go on
| stage, they told me that I had only 15 minutes. So, well, I
| remembered one of the few things I learned in grad school:
| talk fast and don't give 'em a standing target.
|
| Covered my points and finished in, yep, 18 minutes.
| elwell wrote:
| I saw that talk a long time ago, but I can still hear you
| saying "I would _dearly_ love to talk about one-sided
| objects! " I appreciate your infectious energy.
| arp242 wrote:
| Well, I bought a Klein bottle and knitted Klein hat after
| seeing that talk many years ago, so it wasn't entirely
| useless :-)
|
| I still have the hat. I no longer have the bottle as I
| moved to the other side of the world a number of years
| ago, and after inquiring with some mathematician friends
| it turned out that four-dimensional glass bottles are not
| compatible with three-dimensional backpacks :-/
|
| When I got the package it was covered in hand-written
| notes; gosh, I don't remember what it said exactly, but
| it was hilarious; somehow you even managed to put some
| joke in Dutch on it. I wanted to email something back but
| I was shy and didn't know what to say. So, about a decade
| too late, thanks! Not only was I very happy with the
| bottle, the packaging absolutely made my day all those
| years ago.
| aerospace_guy wrote:
| I just watched this for the first time. Your energy is
| infectious and inspiring.
|
| Thank you for what you do.
| davidw wrote:
| He has occasionally stopped by this site:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=CliffStoll
| CliffStoll wrote:
| And, still do occasionally stop by! (woke up from sleeping,
| and a heavy load on my raspberry-pi web server told me
| something was happening...)
| billpg wrote:
| Wait, your web server is a Raspberry PI, and its holding up
| while being on the HN front page.
|
| Do you have a caching service in front maybe?
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Hi Bill,
|
| Yep. Cloudflare is out front, so the actual load on the
| rasp-pi is mitigated by their content-delivery network.
|
| Then, too, my website is almost entirely simple html with
| compressed images, so there's not a lot of bytes to
| shovel.
|
| Here in Berkeley/Oakland, Sonic.net has strung quality
| fiber-optic, so there's 1Gbit to my house. That lets me
| keep up with things. However, they only give a dynamic ip
| address;, so my pi must keep track of its address and
| tell Cloudflare whenever it changes.
|
| Works surprisingly well - from /top/ I see about several
| dozen simultaneous users (thank you!), and the cpu temp
| is about 2 degrees above its normal of 50C
|
| The raspberry pi itself is in the crawlspace under my
| home, fed through a Ubiquity edge router. Much fun,
| playing with Unix (oops, I mean Linux) -- sends me back
| to days of yore when everything happened from your
| command lines.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Cliff...
|
| 1. I met you in Kepler's when Silicon Snake Oil came out
| and we talked about something and you wrote in the inside
| "I hear you, John". I don't know what we discussed!
|
| 2. I am now Cloudflare's CTO and if you want to avoid the
| dynamic IP address problem you can use Cloudflare Tunnel
| to connect to us (rather than us to you).
| https://www.cloudflare.com/products/tunnel/
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Yikes! Good stuff! (Just last week I was about to bump up
| my Cloudflare account. This seals it!)
|
| And that Kepler's talk? Happy memories, indeed. They
| "paid" me for my talk by saying that I could have a copy
| of any book in the store. I chose the Times World Atlas
| (a way-big book of maps). The manager's face suddenly
| dropped -- and then I told 'em that I'd pay full list
| price if all of their employees sound sign the book.
| Result: I now have a terrific atlas of maps, with a dozen
| signatures of book people. (two of them visited me last
| year and I showed them their signatures from decades ago
| -- very sweet!)
|
| Meanwhile, I gotta send out some of the tsunami of Klein
| bottle orders. But Cloudflare tunnel? Here I come!
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Let me know (jgc AT cloudflare DOT com) if you need help
| with Tunnel.
| eatonphil wrote:
| From personal experience, any cheap vps that can serve
| static pages will stand the front of HN.
|
| The blogs that go down here typically back every request
| by MySQL (ahem, WordPress) which is totally unnecessary
| and often actively harmful since MySQL has very low
| default total connections allowed.
|
| The point being: don't serve requests backed by a
| database unless the results are likely to change very
| dynamically!
| beermonster wrote:
| No need to even get a cheap VPS. You can just serve up
| static content in an S3 bucket or similar.
| eatonphil wrote:
| For sure. I've used Github Pages (free site hosting) for
| a few years now. I'm leaning back toward VPS though so
| that I can do access log analysis rather than depend on
| Google Analytics.
|
| But the point was to make a comparison to a Raspberry Pi
| and emphasize that you do not special compute to
| withstand thousands of page views. Even S3 and GH Pages
| are overkill in terms of the compute behind both of them
| vs. what you need minimally.
| toast0 wrote:
| > The blogs that go down here typically back every
| request by MySQL (ahem, WordPress) which is totally
| unnecessary and often actively harmful since MySQL has
| very low default total connections allowed.
|
| WordPress is not my favorite thing and some of the
| available plug-ins do terrible things with MySQL, but the
| problem is not too low default connections; it's too many
| PHP workers. WordPress is generally focused enough that
| most of the wall time is spent in waiting for the
| database, so you want to optimize for throughput; one or
| two workers per cpu thread is plenty for that. More
| concurrency than execution available reduces throughput,
| so it's better to queue requests in your http layer than
| to process multiple at once.
|
| Large numbers of MySQL connections are more appropriate
| when the web pages do a mix of things, but more/mostly
| idle DB wise; in that case, you might still want
| persistent connections to reduce round trips before a
| query, but are less likely to have a query backlog large
| enough where task switching overhead becomes significant.
| eatonphil wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks for clarifying.
| billpg wrote:
| If you'll excuse me, I'm going to be looking at HTML
| cache add-ons for my WordPress site.
| eatonphil wrote:
| Yes you can do that or there are static site generators
| backed by MySQL too. So your data and configuration site
| can still be dynamic but your served site will be
| completely static.
|
| The only difference between this and adding a cache is
| that the cache is another piece of software in your
| production stack.
| Axien wrote:
| Can you recommend a good static site generator?
| beermonster wrote:
| When my friends webserver died and they had no backups, I
| found the wayback machine was s good (historic) static
| site generator ;-) Just mirror it from there and voila.
| eatonphil wrote:
| For WordPress? No. I don't use it. I just know SSGs for
| it exists and not enough people/companies use it (when
| they're using WP in the first place). :)
|
| Vanilla SSGs are so simple I ended up writing a basic one
| out of a markdown and jinja parser in Python every time
| (for example: https://github.com/eatonphil/notes.eatonphi
| l.com/blob/master...).
|
| If I were not lazy I might learn one of the major ones
| like Hugo.
|
| It doesn't matter what SSG you pick, they all produce the
| exact same kind of thing.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Hexo is a good and fast lightweight generator.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Hah! That's funny and cool. I mean hot.
| nxpnsv wrote:
| Also, he did a numberphile podcast which was truly fantastic. I
| laughed and cried. Do listen to it.
| erk__ wrote:
| Here is a link to the youtube version:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxdcBD4ppF0
|
| And I will double up and say it is a great episode of a great
| podcast.
| mijoharas wrote:
| Ahhh... unfortunately there's no kindle version. (I'm too
| inundated with paper books that I tend to stick with digital
| for new purchases).
|
| Out of interest, is it publishing companies that make digital
| versions of books, or is it up to the author themselves to do
| that?
|
| (And if it's the latter this is a small request to Clifford to
| consider it if it's not too much of an arduous task. And
| provided their relationship with amazon isn't too soured by the
| current situation, which I could understand if it is).
| gfaure wrote:
| He's also a connoisseur and collector of slide rules and the
| Curta mechanical calculator!
|
| Here's a video of him describing how the Curta performs
| arithmetic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OynMJB-2J1o -- as
| well as the SciAm article he wrote on them:
| http://www.mycurta.com/Calculator.pdf
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Connoisseur? Naw! Stop by my place and you'll see a messy
| collection of oddball things ranging from some old
| calculators to stacks of old books. I received a Curta
| Calculator from my astronomy mentor, Ernst Both, when he got
| an HP-35 around 1973. I was one of his students; today, I
| can't look at it without thinking happy thoughts using a
| spectrohelioscope to understand sunspot magnetic fields. But
| that's another story...
| gfaure wrote:
| Wow, I'm honoured to hear from someone who loves these old
| calculating devices as much as I do! I have a Curta II and
| a number of the HP Voyager calculators from the 80s (11C,
| 15C, 16C), but the one that takes the pride of place in my
| collection has to be the Curta. Looking forward to adding a
| Klein bottle or beanie to my collection some day, too.
| RobertoG wrote:
| >>"Nice write-up of how this scam works, I wasn't aware of the
| details previously."
|
| I still don't understand how it works. Why can somebody owning
| something called "Amvoom" claim something called "Acme Klein
| Bottle"?
|
| An even if they legally own the brand, how keeping the reviews
| when moving the brand to the new owner is the proper thing to
| do for the customers? By definition, the reviews are for
| another provider. I don't get it.
| s_fischer wrote:
| My best guess is that amazon is using the entities associated
| with the registered trademark as some form of proof of
| identity. So since there was no registered trademark for Acme
| Klein Bottle, there was nothing to compare the new identity
| to when Amvoom submitted their request.
|
| I really hope I'm wrong though because this sounds like a
| very lazy and flawed system.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| > a very lazy and flawed system.
|
| That's how you make $100B, not by "doing things that don't
| scale" like handwriting thankyou notes to every customer.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Allson, your comment hits home. I _like_ to scribble
| thank you notes to customers. I was brought up that way.
| Anyhow, sooner or later, I 'll meet the person who bought
| that Klein bottle - so I'd like to have a good feeling
| ahead of time.
| adrian_mrd wrote:
| Has anyone read his other book 'Silicon Snake Oil' [1] from
| 1995 lately?
|
| Sounds like most of his predictions in it (eg e-commerce will
| fail, digital books will not be viable, etc) were wildly off
| the mark - but were any prescient?
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil
| wombatpm wrote:
| I read in 1995 when it came out. My take away - searching is
| not the same as browsing, and something is lost when
| serendipity is removed from the process. And the internet
| works for a certain mindset to the detriment of other points
| of view
| [deleted]
| alisonkisk wrote:
| He completely missed the boat about how Moore's Law would
| improve upon the power of early prototypes. It's a classic
| case of underestimating the power of exponential growth by
| visualizing it as low-order polynomial, and missing that
| "digital is worse than analog" is a problem that can be
| solved by increasing the scale of digital power.
|
| But he was right about tech will enable and amplify the worst
| in social behaviors.
| teraflop wrote:
| Just from skimming through the book, it seems like its
| central thesis is an enumeration of all the ways in which
| computers and the Internet are terrible, accompanied by
| predictions that none of those flaws are ever likely to
| change. So it's not really a matter of any of his predictions
| being "prescient", it's just that some things have improved
| drastically, and others less so.
|
| For example, he complains that nobody will want to look up
| information from computerized databases because CD-ROMs are
| too slow; consumers won't shop online because they can't pay
| securely; retailers won't rely on e-commerce because too few
| customers have Internet access; nobody will want e-books
| because you can't read them on the subway; there's no way to
| effectively search for content online; digital art will never
| surpass clip art and crude photoshops; it's impossible for
| networks to be secure because data and credentials are
| unencrypted; and so on.
|
| On the bright side, he thinks that at least nobody will need
| to worry about online privacy, because it will be too
| cumbersome for anyone to effectively maintain databases of
| personal information.
|
| But on the other hand, with some of his observations, it's at
| least arguable that they still hold true 25 years later:
|
| > Anyone can post messages to the net. Practically everyone
| does. The resulting cacophony drowns out serious discussion.
| Online debates of tough issues are often polarized by
| messages taking extreme positions.
|
| > An original IBM PC, now over ten years old, is fully
| obsolete. Likely, it will still work perfectly and do
| everything it was build for; after all, the silicon and
| copper haven't deteriorated. But you can't get software for
| it any longer.
|
| > A word processor may last two years before the next
| version. These upgrades likely add as many new bugs as are
| patched, and result in a bigger, more complex program. One
| that's less and less compatible with old files. [...]
| Curiously, as computer hardware gets faster, programs run
| slower.
|
| > Photo retouching isn't new. Digital image processing,
| however, can be so extensive yet undetectable that it
| undermines the foundation of photojournalism -- that seeing
| is believing.
| [deleted]
| soheil wrote:
| What is the purpose of a Klein bottle for those of us not in the
| know? Can you store food in it or is it just the geometrical
| shape that fascinates children?
| gnopgnip wrote:
| It is a 3d representation of a 4d object that is basically the
| equivalent of a 4d mobius strip. There is only one side, no
| edges, and in 4d it doesn't bisect itself. You could store a
| liquid in it, but it is impractical to clean or drink from.
| Mostly mathematicians would be interested in it, as a novelty.
| soheil wrote:
| Why can't we have even a cooler 5d object represented in 3d
| and sell that on Amazon?
| 238475235243 wrote:
| Just to say I bought one of these as a gift years ago and it was
| great. If you're thinking of buying one, go for it.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Wish we could throw all these brand thrives into a Klein bottle.
| neom wrote:
| I had no clue what a Klein Bottle is, this video was very very
| very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfhiVaJj9UY
| chrisjc wrote:
| I had no idea who Cliff was, as well as what a Klein Bottle
| was, but after watching this video I could watch him all day.
| I'd love to watch more short videos with him explaining things!
| CliffStoll wrote:
| I still have no idea who Cliff is...
| neom wrote:
| Quite the character!!! If we had more people as wonderfully
| excited about life as this guy, the world would be a
| considerably better place. What a cool dude.
| seu wrote:
| The pointing out that it's a 'foreign' seller seems unnecessary
| and xenophobic, especially given the fact that it is an American
| corporation the one that not only allows, but almost incentivizes
| this behavior.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| One of the problems is that many foreign sellers have opaque
| addresses, through which it's impossible to contact.
| Specifically, a PinYin address is very difficult to reliably
| send mail to. Making it worse is that Amazon does not list any
| email address to contact for their Brand Registry. Together,
| this means that I have nobody to easily contact.
| phonon wrote:
| Can you contact their attorney?
|
| https://uspto.report/TM/90721592/FTK20210522113954#3
|
| From the filing 244 Fifth Avenue, Suite
| V284 New York, New York 10001 United
| States 646-785-1788(phone)
| domee.zhong1@gmail.com SECONDARY EMAIL ADDRESS(ES)
| (COURTESY COPIES): dmtm2020@outlook.com
|
| From the NY bar (only match for that name)
| Attorney Detail Report as of 06/30/2021 Registration
| Number: 5054689 Name: XIAOFANG ZHONG Business
| Name: Business Address: Not on File Business
| Phone: (917) 819-2798 Email: xiaofangz@hotmail.com
| Date Admitted: 06/19/2012 Appellate Division Department
| of Admission: 3rd Law School: Temple University Beasley
| School of Law Registration Status: Attorney - Currently
| Registered Next Registration: Nov 2022
| [deleted]
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Good fodder for him to write a sequel.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Any suggestions on where I should post a slightly more academic
| version of this analysis? Somehow, posting here on Hacker News
| seems like I'm talking with friends at a cafe; surely there's a
| better place for this to be addressed. I'm not even sure if
| this kind of thing falls under the aegis of "computer security"
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It's a social engineering- or maybe trademark/big online
| platform loophole engineering attack, sounds like a computer
| security issue imho. It could certainly be done to scam other
| sellers as well, and perhaps it has already.
| ggm wrote:
| Now I'm wondering how blackhead removers work and if I want to
| even think about finding out.
| ratww wrote:
| _> Now I 'm wondering how blackhead removers work_
|
| The vast majority of them don't actually work, this is why
| those sellers rely on scams. It's almost impossible to know
| which ones do online.
|
| Source: girlfriend and family experiences.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Sucking, pinching, and/or adhesive.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| They don't but if you have very oily/not sensitive skin the
| L'Oreal Man Charcoal Cleanser is just short of being
| miraculous. It doesn't outright remove blackheads but
| everything that can be removed will be so it works a lot better
| than masks ime. I've never really cared enough to bother using
| any "beauty"/skin products but that one I've added to my
| routine and over time it just made blackheads disappear. Idk
| how l'Oreal came up with such a good formula when their other
| products are usually more gimmicky (or downright just bad and
| useless) according to my GF/dad/mom etc.
|
| Though keep in mind I didn't have any huge, dried out aged
| blackhead to worry about, & those would be impossible to remove
| without some extraction.
| jcims wrote:
| There's a world waiting for you on YouTube.
| grammers wrote:
| This, and similar scams make me not want to buy anything off
| Amazon ever again.
| Nicksil wrote:
| This seems completely insane to me. How is this possible?
|
| I like Cliff Stoll and have been looking forward to my first
| Klein bottle purchase for some years now, so I say this without
| any insinuation Cliff's not telling the whole story: There's got
| to be more to it than this, right? Can someone really go on
| Amazon, effectively take over someone's storefront, and
| completely ransack the place this easily? Because Cliff doesn't
| have a registered trademark? This seems out of this world absurd.
| eyepulp wrote:
| Are you saying Cliff's claims are too...
|
| one-sided?
| II2II wrote:
| I don't know if it is easy, but I wouldn't be surprised if
| Amazon is aware of the problem.
|
| There was a discussion about selling products through Amazon on
| _The Amp Hour_ a few months back, and part of the discussion
| included trademarks as a requirement. They made it sound like a
| new and expensive hurdle to deal with. Given Stoll 's comments,
| it sounds like the lack of a registered trademark was a
| contributing factor to his problem. Putting the two together
| leads me to believe that Amazon is aware this can happen. (From
| the show notes, it looks like
| https://theamphour.com/523-a-keyzermas-story/ is the episode in
| question.)
|
| Edit: for clarity.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Hi Nick, And thank you for your kind note. I'm in the
| embarrassing position of asking you to wait a few months, as
| I'm very low in stock; I hope to have more glass Klein bottles
| by late summer. (Klein bottle hats & Mobius scarves, happily, I
| have plenty).
| [deleted]
| fredsir wrote:
| Does it really? With what I've been reading about what is going
| on over at Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, this doesn't
| surprise me at all. It's awful, but not surprising. And reading
| about how Amazon treats it's employees, as has been covered on
| this site numerous times in the last while, it's even less
| surprising.
|
| And continuing to use those services is giving a vote for those
| practices to keep on keeping on, and that people still use
| them? Well, no, it's not surprising but it's sad.
| Nicksil wrote:
| To me, yes, it is surprising. But likely because I don't use
| Amazon, Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, and so do not read the
| things you're reading (or at least as much) but I understand
| your point nonetheless. I skim past the numerous stories
| regarding how awful these companies behave and yet continue
| to reap massive profits. I've known Amazon was bad, but not
| _this_ bad. It 's a shit state of affairs.
| errantspark wrote:
| Well, it's not strictly regulated and it's a monopoly so...
| KirillPanov wrote:
| I am confused too. Especially this part:
|
| _On June 22nd, they used Amazon 's Brand Registry to re-brand
| my listing on Amazon (replacing my brand, "Acme Klein Bottle"
| with "Amvoom") They could do this because Amazon's Brand
| Registry only respects issued trademarks._
|
| I don't get this at all. Attacker has a trademark on "Amvoom".
| The word "Amvoom" does not appear in Stoll's product name or
| description. It isn't even _close_ to any of the words in the
| product name.
|
| FWIW I fully 100% believe Stoll. But the real question here is
| why is a "brand registry" allowing product takeovers that don't
| involve said brand? That seems to rise far beyond the usual
| Amazon bullshit, to straight-up algorithmic incompetence. How
| is this possible?
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Kirill, you've put your finger on the central problem. Amazon
| should check that a product which is claimed by a Brand is
| actually covered by the "goods & services" listed under that
| trademark.
| KirillPanov wrote:
| I just want to say: your crawlspace-forklift is beyond
| awesome.
|
| https://hackaday.com/2015/06/24/crawlspace-warehouse-
| include...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
| CliffStoll wrote:
| (blush)
|
| It's my way to cheat the chiropractor. Anything to avoid
| crawling around under my house.
| Nicksil wrote:
| Exactly. That's why I was dumbfounded; it just seemed too
| ridiculous to be real. These companies really don't give a
| shit about people; they just continue to recite something
| about "customer obsession" and return to patting themselves
| on the back.
| enjeyw wrote:
| On the bright side, I think I've finally manage to internalise
| the meaning of "Kafkaesque".
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Hijacking listing with good ratings is very common for products
| that are not gated
|
| One view is that Amazon wants sellers to register their
| trademarks formally with the government, then go through the
| brand registry process to prevent this.
| moepstar wrote:
| They're still in denial that they have a problem.
|
| Just read the thread on the previous occasion where listings got
| hijacked on their own fora [0] - its sad to see the sellers so
| powerless, helpless and just left to themselves.
|
| You really have to wonder why they even bother...
|
| Edit: also, reading that thread you can also get a feel why big
| brands have completely left AMZN as a platform (like Adidas,
| Birkenstock are a few i'm aware of).
|
| Possible co-mingling of inventory, hijacked listings... no, just
| don't bother - of course not each and everyone is a heavyweight
| as my 2 examples - but _do we really need_ 100s of dropshippers
| FBA 'ing the same crap? I'd rather buy direct at the source than
| at Amazon these days.
|
| [0] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/review-
| manipulatio...
| varispeed wrote:
| > They're still in denial that they have a problem.
|
| They are too big to fail and they can bribe their way out of
| anything. As long as majority of people don't care, why would
| they ever want to fix it?
|
| Also for one legit Western company, you can get 1000 Chinese
| knock-off cheaper ones that don't complain and people buy
| what's cheaper.
| sf_rob wrote:
| This was a while ago, but I got a counterfeit fitness band (it
| told me to download a random APK from a 3rd party website) from
| Amazon, and they repeatedly told me to resolve it directly with
| the seller who, surprise surprise, were not interested in
| issuing a refund.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| I hear you, Moe. Can't say that I'm a big brand. Indeed, I want
| to _stay_ a small one-person shop.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Maybe that makes you incompatible with Amazon, because they
| are about unbounded growth for its own sake!
|
| Small is beautiful! Stay small!
|
| - from the guy who in September 2000 bought 16 klein bottles
| since you only charged for prime numbered bottles, and sent
| you his credit card number as the sum of two 16-digit numbers
| sent to different email addresses! I still have a beer mug
| and question mark; all the rest are with friends! <3
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Thanatos, your obd't servant, alas, is awake far past his
| bed-time, so his normally rusty memory is working even
| worse than normal. So, sad to report, I don't remember this
| transaction, but it sounds exactly like what I'd do. Just
| to better support number theory.
| ansible wrote:
| In years past, I'd say his business is perfect for Etsy.
| But that is a disaster now as well.
| EricE wrote:
| Ebay still works very well. While not far from perfect,
| it's amazing how much better they appear in contrast to
| pretty much everyone else right now!
|
| How sad - they didn't have to get better, everyone else
| just got a lot worse by comparison.
| ansible wrote:
| I was reading stories a couple years ago about how Etsy
| has been flooded with mass-produced crap, and now it is
| hard to find actual hand-made stuff by actual crafts-
| people.
|
| As I understand it, the actually e-commerce was still OK.
| It was more a problem with discoverability.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The one thing I don't get, and I worked for AMZN in logistics,
| is the co-mingling of inventory. It is so easy to solve, poses
| so many problems and yet the logistics benchmark company fails
| to do it right.
| beerandt wrote:
| I always assumed they tracked co-mingled sourcing internally,
| but don't have a reason to make it public.
|
| At least that way they could trace the people who were
| seriously poisoning the co-mingled well, in circumstances
| where they wanted to.
| AnssiH wrote:
| They explicitly say on their seller help pages that
| comingled inventory can be tracked to the original source.
|
| https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/external/G200141
| 4...
|
| > Note: Amazon ensures that the initial source of the
| commingled units can be traced throughout the fulfilment
| process.
|
| The linked FAQ goes into slightly more detail.
| beerandt wrote:
| It's not initial fulfillment that's the obvious problem,
| it's returns that are resold.
|
| If I order 2 of something and they come from different
| sellers, and one is fake, how would they know which was
| which? Or that I selected the correct one to return?
|
| Or if someone orders only 1, but recieve it and return a
| different one they bought from aliexpress.
|
| Knowing that returned items get sold as new, it seems
| like the problem could compound, especially if the same
| item gets returned and resold multiple times. If it's a
| bad fake, that seems more probable then not.
| [deleted]
| noneeeed wrote:
| I no longer buy anything important from Amazon, this especially
| goes for anything that plugs into the mains, I just don't trust
| Amazon any more. Amazon is now just for those low value items
| that I might need in a bit of a rush. This is especially true
| now that more and more retailers have caught up with Amazon's
| shipping (at least here in the UK).
|
| They seem to want it both ways. They have simultaneously tried
| to argue that they are not responsible for third-party sellers
| and blame them when fake and/or unsafe goods are sold, but then
| they work hard to make it appear that everything is coming from
| one place. It gets particularly annoying when it's a product
| with lots of variations (colours/sizes etc) where each variant
| will be a different seller with different shipping.
| scrooched_moose wrote:
| Same. Anything that plugs in, has batteries, or goes in my
| family's mouths is a no go for me now.
|
| I'm pretty much down to a few books, video games, and obscure
| fasteners/hardware/tools (which annoyingly they're just about
| the only good source for).
| caconym_ wrote:
| Don't forget your family's lungs. I don't really order the
| right sorts of things, but my wife often orders things that
| arrive smelling like they were dipped in benzene before
| leaving the factory.
|
| Kind of a good metaphor for how toxic Amazon as a whole is,
| actually.
| uberstuber wrote:
| McMaster-Carr might have a better selection of obscure
| fasteners/hardware/tools. Pricier, but often faster
| shipping than Amazon
| Applejinx wrote:
| Like books, ironically.
|
| As near as I can work out, their business model is now based
| on your being able to send back completely wrong or broken
| things they've sent you, so I stick to stuff where I've got
| the luxury of going through a cumbersome return process if
| things go terribly wrong.
|
| My address has also been used as a target for a scam where,
| by sending unwanted goods to a real customer, a seller can
| fabricate a fake review that counts in their system as real.
| In one case it was a garbage light (shipped directly in its
| retail packaging so I could see what the thing was) that by a
| strange coincidence was the top-rated light on Amazon.
| Clearly an exploit that pays off.
|
| I stopped (I think) that behavior by returning some
| unsolicited packages to sender, at the post office.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Cliff - if you're reading this - you own the images they're using
| - time to claim copyright with Amazon ....
| bhrgunatha wrote:
| I have a further question.
|
| Since he has common law trademark, why wouldn't that still
| apply? Someone else is selling via Amazon in the US using his
| common law trademark.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| The very first step in Amazon Brand Registry is to tell them
| your US Trademark registration number. Without it, I'm unable
| to get through the Brand Registry website. And I can't find
| any email address for them - nor, any place to mention this
| to. That's why I posted that to my website's home page.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Total speculation here, but probably because common law
| trademark would have to be proven in a court of law. That is,
| he would have to sue the Chinese company, present evidence
| like newspaper clippings or testimony from customers, win,
| get a judgement, and present that to Amazon. Until then,
| Amazon looks in the USPTO database.
| [deleted]
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Um, thanks, I guess. I think that Amazon's agreement is that
| sellers waive copyright to images uploaded. -Cliff around 11:30
| in the evening
| Marsymars wrote:
| I'm no expert, and am not recommending any particular
| copyright-related recourse, but the image submission
| agreement has a clause to remove materials from the service,
| and the license grant to Amazon is not specified as being
| irrevocable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.
| html?nodeId=...
| vfclists wrote:
| Title should read "A seller based in China has hijacked Cliff
| Stoll's Amazon Klein bottle listing"
|
| "foreign" is provincial and kinda racist. "foreign to who"?
|
| Is a seller in China foreign to a Chinese person?
|
| Is a seller in Nigeria "foreign" to a Nigerian?
|
| Is a seller in the UK "foreign" to a British person?
|
| Will this make headlines in the broadsheets, The Washington Post
| in particular?
| ScottWRobinson wrote:
| Just came here to say that I bought one of Cliff's Klein bottles
| maybe 5 years back, and it's still my only decorative
| contribution to our house.
|
| Cliff seems like a great guy, and I hope this gets resolved for
| him.
| seanwilson wrote:
| > To make their blackhead remover listing look legit, Amvoom then
| submitted several hundred orders over Amazon, and immediately
| cancelled each order. These depleted my Klein bottle inventory on
| Amazon - even though nothing was paid for, and nothing was
| shipped. In turn, this removed the "second color option" for
| their blackhead-remover, since Amazon felt that the Klein bottles
| were out of stock. Result: their black-head remover listing got
| 199 positive reviews, and the Klein bottle did not show up as a
| "color choice" in the Amvoom black-head listing.
|
| How do people manage to figure out such elaborate ways to
| manipulate Amazon results without getting banned? Getting banned
| has minimal cost? Poor detection? Inside information?
| sva_ wrote:
| Looking at the articles from that seller, I don't even think
| they attach the articles for the reviews directly. It seems
| like they attach them to articles with many reviews, so that
| they can add their own fake reviews without being detected.
|
| If they made a new article, which immediately gets a lot of 5
| star reviews, that'd be suspicious and Amazon would probably
| detect it.
|
| But if they attach it to an already established article, they
| can happily add their fake reviews and then detach them again,
| making it look legit.
|
| Just a theory though.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Sean, I just added a few things to my note. I'll try to
| copy/paste 'em here, although I suspect my sleepy fingers will
| goof up:
|
| I haven't really reviewed what I'm posting here - heck I can't
| spellcheck at 12:30 in the morning:
|
| Amazon, through its "Brand Registry" allows anyone with an
| issued trademark to take over other brands, whether or not the
| brand is covered by the specific goods that the trademark was
| issued for.
|
| Brand Name Hijacking takes advantage of several bugs in
| Amazon's seller business model:
|
| 1) Amazon Brand Name Registry allows the owner of a USPTO
| trademark to take over listings of non-trademarked brands.
|
| 2) Amazon Brand Name Registry does not prevent a registered
| Amazon brand from over-reaching beyond the regulated goods and
| services associated with that trademark.
|
| 3) Amazon combines reviews of different item variations and
| colors, even though they are from completely different listings
| and manufacturers.
|
| 4) Amazon debits inventory even when an order is cancelled,
| allowing a denial of service attack to exhaust inventory in a
| seller's listing, at no cost to the attacker.
|
| Effects of Brand Hijacking:
|
| 1) Shoddy or unproven products receive five-star reviews,
| apparently from several years.
|
| 2) Consumers, relying on Amazon star ratings, are grossly
| misled by the summary reviews.
|
| 3) Disreputable sellers are rewarded (at the cost of honest
| sellers) by large volume sales caused by high ratings.
|
| 4) Unscrupulous sellers of reviews receive money from Amazon
| sellers in return for inflated reviews.
|
| 5) Independent sellers on Amazon -- specifically those who have
| delivered extremely high customer satisfaction -- are locked
| out of their listings and pushed out of their long term
| business.
| Axien wrote:
| You forgot one. Amazon uses seller data to target which
| products they will produce under their own Amazon brand. So
| creative entrepreneurs eventually find they are completing
| against Amazon directly.
|
| This is why Amazon will eventually be replaced by a company
| that can do things better, faster, and cheaper.
| EricE wrote:
| Walmart was correlating credit card information in the
| 80's. My mind still boggles at how poorly they have handled
| the Internet. If there is a company that can best Amazon
| and provide unique experiences with their tens of thousands
| of local warehouses (their retail stores!) it should be
| them. It's utterly mystifying that instead of leveraging
| their strengths they ran off and created a less functional
| clone of Amazon. Yikes!
| genericone wrote:
| The Walton family that owns Walmart has a higher net
| worth than Bezos, according to google ($235B Walton vs
| $196B Bezos), so the owners of Walmart are still more
| wealthy than the owners of Amazon. And whatever they are
| doing in brick and mortar is orthogonal to Amazon, Amazon
| can't do B&M at the same scale, and Walmart can't do
| online sales at the same scale.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Either they have played around , experienced a similar issue
| and went on to discover more, or maybe from inside. I think
| it's the first option, though.
| ev1 wrote:
| Getting banned has a minimal cost if you are a throwaway goods
| reseller running off a newly registered business in a region
| where you can effectively ignore all foreign laws, falsify
| documentation, or whatever else.
|
| Getting banned has a high cost if you are a single small
| business with a long-term decades of time in business as the
| same company registration.
| unclekev wrote:
| > How do people manage to figure out such elaborate ways to
| manipulate Amazon results without getting banned? Getting
| banned has minimal cost? Poor detection? Inside information?
|
| They don't actually ban the accounts doing this. They only
| remove the reviews/listings, but don't take any action on the
| accounts (so they just re-list 24 hours later)
|
| Apparently when Amazon acts, they are just removing the fake
| reviews, sometimes the whole product but never actually banning
| the sellers account (even if every product that seller is
| listing is pumped full of fake reviews)
|
| It seems to be a endless cycle of a item being hijacked or a
| item filled with fake reviews, then when reported to Amazon
| they simply remove the fake reviews or the product but don't
| take any action at all against the seller (or accounts making
| the fake reviews)
|
| This thread[0] on the Amazon Seller forums is crazy with people
| finding products that are scam listings (with 10,000+ fake
| reviews), they report them, the products get taken down, then
| 24 hours later the same sellers have re listed with more fake
| reviews.
|
| Amazon simply do not care, if they did they would:
|
| A) Address the root problem
|
| B) Ban the seller accounts clearly manipulating the system.
|
| Amazon is quick to permaban accounts from real sellers, who
| make a single mistake (sometimes completely out of their
| control) but are happy to let these fake review/sellers keep
| their accounts.
|
| [0] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/review-
| manipulatio...
| seanwilson wrote:
| > Amazon simply do not care
|
| Why though? How does this not hurt Amazon long term? What are
| they gaining from attracting dodgy sellers in the short term?
| modeless wrote:
| Messed up internal incentives, I guess. It happens to every
| large company.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Retail is a low margin business, whereas being a platform
| for third party sellers is a high margin business. As long
| as their reputation amongst sufficient number of people is
| high enough to keep them paying for Amazon prime, then that
| is the most amount of effort they should put into retail.
| pas wrote:
| Long term is subjective.
|
| But the more important point is, Amazon is a must-use
| shipping provider with a crappy platform. They don't give a
| fuck about the retail part. They diversified with AWS, Jeff
| plays with his billions, fights unions, tracks piss
| bottles, cancels or renews Prime shows, goes to space,
| etc.. etc.. the site at this point is almost just a cute
| idiosyncrasy. As long as it runs and the orders are
| flowing, it's A-OK. Of course there's are probably many
| teams working on "reforming" it. The NEW amazon.com. The
| redesign. The refactor. The revamp. The modernization. But
| all of those are just to keep people working there so they
| maintain the old behemoth while their project slowly gets
| put on the backburner (and/or gets scaled down to a small
| demo page somewhere that no one ever sees or uses).
| fmajid wrote:
| Revenue.
| efitz wrote:
| The answer to _almost_ every question that starts with
| "why don't they" ultimately ends up being "money".
|
| The marginal edge cases boil down to "power" or
| "stupidity".
| ansible wrote:
| If you can get someone else's account banned for having fake
| reviews, it would be easy to take out the competition that
| way.
|
| Fundamentally, it is too easy to sign up as a seller.
| nyghtly wrote:
| It feels like buying stuff on Amazon gets worse and worse every
| year.
| naga_n wrote:
| Great to see news of Cliff here. I have his hardbound book
| autograpged when I met him in a conference in Berkeley about 10
| years ago. I read the book almost 25 years ago..
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Sorry about this Cliff. Hope somebody at Amazon can clear it up.
| FWIW I bought one of your Klein bottles last year (directly from
| your website) and it arrived quickly and undamaged.
|
| I'm also moving away from Amazon ordering in general because it
| takes much too long to sift through all the fake reviews of
| Chinese-made garbage to find the fake reviews for the Chinese-
| made good stuff.
| worik wrote:
| Can people stop using Amazon. Not a question.
|
| I have not bought anything from Amazon for several years.
|
| Just stop.
| IncRnd wrote:
| It seems like going on the Live Chat with Amazon would help Stoll
| speak with someone. I've used that several times and they always
| fixed the issue right away.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| as a customer or as a seller?
| IncRnd wrote:
| As a seller you can go to the contact us page at
| sellercentral, select the option on the left, then click
| phone in the middle and get a call back from Amazon.
|
| For live chat as a seller, follow these instructions from
| Amazon's Moderator:
| https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/wheres-live-
| chat-s...
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Yes, I posted (repeatedly) to Amazon Seller forum. Several
| people replied, but, alas, the suggestions were not of
| help. See:
| https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/product-page-
| hijac...
| IncRnd wrote:
| Were you able to contact a person through their live chat
| or call back links?
| CliffStoll wrote:
| No, I was never able to contact a live person at Amazon.
|
| However thanks to this Hacker News article, three Amazon
| employees have contacted me, with varying degrees of
| success. As of this moment (around 4PM
| Pacific time on Wednesday30 June), my listing has been
| 404'd ... I'm unsure if I will be able to recover the
| reviews if I rebuild it. Or even if I can rebuild it.
| Most of all - thank you to my friends on HN. What a
| bright spot in an otherwise weird situation!
| rickspencer3 wrote:
| We're finally going to not renew our Amazon Prime after many
| years.
|
| We don't have that much need for "free" shipping on cheap Chinese
| products, and the convenience of the Amazon marketplace is now
| counter-balanced by the inconvenience of sorting out the fake
| goods and fake reviews. We are choosing sellers' own marketplaces
| when we can these days, and just dealing with longer and paid
| shipping.
|
| Additionally, we are finding that Amazon Prime Video doesn't have
| so much that we want to watch anymore either, and we are paying
| for multiple streaming services anyway.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| > we are paying for multiple streaming services anyway.
|
| I just cancelled my membership, for all of the reasons you
| cite. I had been letting my membership ride only because of
| their streaming video, but recently, they've started yet
| another dark pattern.
|
| I rarely finish a movie in one sitting. Three times in the past
| month or so, I've started watching something for free, and then
| come back to find that it was no longer free when I wanted to
| finish it. Like, the next day.
|
| Most recently, this was Freakonomics. It was free when I
| started it, then I hit the wrong button on my Apple TV remote
| (THAT'S real hard, amirite?), and when I went to restart it, it
| had become for-cost. I mean, seriously?
|
| I can live without their exclusives, and the standard defense
| around here that they're not, actually, a monopoly for online
| shopping is certainly true, so I'm done.
| atatatat wrote:
| Might I recommend Monoprice.com for the cables docks adapters
| displays speakers etc that you need cheap and reliable?
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Lot's of their stuff is made in Taiwan, which I consider a
| plus.
| javajosh wrote:
| Thanks! I just cancelled Prime too for similar reasons as the
| GP, and I have found excellent alternative sources for most
| things but fiddly bits like cables eluded me. (My online
| replacements are: books => alibris, cds/vinyl => discogs,
| photography => b&h, music gear => sweetwater/cl. I'm happy to
| report that each service is superior to Amazon in every way,
| even if it's slightly inconvenient to multiplex like this.)
| 1-6 wrote:
| Welcome to the other side. I haven't renewed Amazon Prime in
| quite a while. It's not that bad because you can still shop on
| Amazon with free shipping as long as you hit the minimum
| amount. I may keep things in the cart and sometimes it becomes
| a reminder for me to grab those items at the local shop. The
| only time I get an 'itch' to get back on Prime when I'm at
| Whole Foods. Other than that, goodbye free shipping!
| giarc wrote:
| Do you know if you can still use Subscribe and Save without a
| Prime membership? We use that service quite a bit.
| mattnewton wrote:
| You can (I do)
| giarc wrote:
| Interesting. I'm wondering if I'd be able to drop the
| Amazon Prime then as well. Outside of Subscribe and Save,
| all of our purchases could be bunched until we hit the
| minimum order $. We hardly ever watch Amazon Prime video,
| we used to use the Photo storage but now pay for Google
| Photos (or Google One... whatever they call it now). Not
| sure what other benefits it provides?
| dcdc123 wrote:
| I am thinking about canceling as well but I am a nomad and
| need to be able to have things shipped to Amazon lockers. Do
| they still allow that without a Prime subscription?
| mhardcastle wrote:
| They do. I use pickup lockers without Prime all the time.
| rickspencer3 wrote:
| My wife pointed out that the shipping is not, in fact, free,
| because we pay $100 (or whatever it is now) for Prime.
| choward wrote:
| You can still get free shipping with orders over $25. I
| cancelled prime years ago. I try to avoid Amazon as much as I
| can but I still use them sometimes like when someone gets me a
| giftcard that I can't regift.
| minton wrote:
| I have also canceled after nearly 15 years of being a customer.
| I cannot trust what they'll ship me will be a legit product and
| not a knockoff.
| russianbandit wrote:
| Great! This is how giant, greedy corporations die.
| psim1 wrote:
| "Shenzhen Hangteng Information Technology Co in Shenzhen, China"
|
| Let's just call them Chinese SHIT Company.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Automation without live human review should be criminal. One
| could imagine non-internet analogous situations that are
| explicitly criminal.
|
| It's common that automated decisions with no human contact cause
| situations like these; probably most of them go unresolved
| because the victims do not have the clout to arouse a mob.
|
| Corporations have a monetary incentive NOT to resolve these
| problems.
|
| It's time for regulation. The market has failed.
| osazuwa wrote:
| It amazes how much raw ingenuity goes into scams and hustles.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Don't they know who they are messing with? This man took down a
| spy ring from their ping times ;-)
| greyhair wrote:
| One more reason that I am no longer renewing my Amazon Prime this
| year when it is up.
|
| Amazon is on a slow slide to hell. I came to realize this last
| year. And Prime membership is a large part of the problem. Two
| issues:
|
| 1) It reduces friction so it is easiest to default buy from them.
|
| 2) The price on those handcuffs / membership has gone up, a lot,
| and it is basically a driver to dilute the cost burden via
| volume.
|
| So cancelling Prime is the key to kicking Amazon to the curb.
|
| You can still use it, for times when you cannot find something
| anywhere else, but it no longer becomes the default.
| EricE wrote:
| A perfect example of why I buy less and less from sites that
| support 3rd party sellers.
|
| The problem is even once reliable sites like newegg.com are now
| playing these games. If I wanted the Ebay/alibaba experience I
| can get that! Why large retailer sites dilute their brand and
| frustrate customers in the fruitless chase of "being like Amazon"
| in catering to 3rd party sellers amazes and annoys me.
|
| At least most other sites let you weed out the 3rd party sellers
| fairly easily. What's really annoying is with Amazon, even if you
| are buying from "Amazon" it could be ultimately supplied to
| Amazon by some hackney 3rd party and not a trusted wholesaler or
| the original manufacturer. And as Cliff Stoll found out, Amazon
| doesn't care either.
|
| Talk about coasting on your reputation. It will be interesting to
| see how much trust they have to piss away before it affects them
| enough for them to finally pay attention to stuff like this :/
| IronWolve wrote:
| Amazon is more expensive on many items even with free shipping.
| Shopping for coffee makers, air conditioners i noticed I could
| get them cheaper and with free shipping from home depot and
| walmart.
|
| While amazon is super handy, even food items like can goods are
| cheaper on walmart, but you have to wait a few days for
| shipping. Its can goods, theres no hurry, save money and shop
| around.
| DelightOne wrote:
| Amazon should offer an option where its OK to wait longer for
| wares as long as its 100% certain that it comes from the
| manufacturer.
| fma wrote:
| I buy a lot from Walmart now, to drive business away from
| Amazon (I would never have typed these words a few years
| ago...). First thing I do is click Retailer = Walmart.com.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| I used to hate Best Buy because I had some poor return
| experiences back in the 90s, but now it's my first choice for
| online shopping because they only sell first-party items and
| they have control over their supply chain. This is
| particularly important for frequently-counterfeited products
| like SD cards.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Sometimes it makes me feel like a crazy person - I bought
| some new headphones a few months ago, and walked to a
| physical Best Buy store to make the purchase, because I had
| no confidence any online retailer wasn't going to sell me
| counterfeits, and the manufacturer was selling at full MSRP
| instead of the slightly-cheaper usual going rate for them.
|
| And for what its worth, the store experience was totally
| fine. I'll give them my money again next time I need
| something tech related.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I had some poor return experiences back in the 90s, but
| now it 's my first choice_
|
| My wife knows the person who is responsible for this, and
| tells me that the person who implemented these changes
| knows exactly what you're talking about because that person
| had the same horrible experiences with Best Buy decades
| ago. That's the reason things have changed.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Walmart has tons of sketchy 3rd party sellers as well, but
| yes, clicking Retailer=Walmart will get you Walmart. To my
| knowledge, they don't do the same inventory intermingling
| that Amazon does.
| abawany wrote:
| Remember that Walmart and Best Buy also sell a lot of 3rd-
| party stuff now. I find it strange that on their site I
| always have to filter by Retailer=Walmart.com to get their
| listings and even then, it sometimes filters out some of
| their own listings.
| gwittel wrote:
| Target has started this as well. It's baffling that
| companies will so willingly work to destroy consumer trust.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| They did this to directly compete with Amazon, I'm
| constantly baffled as to why they persist with this design.
|
| Every time you hear, "<Crazy thing X> sold on Walmart
| website!" it's always a reseller, not directly from them.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I 'm constantly baffled as to why they persist with this
| design._
|
| Because "monkey see, monkey do" is pretty much the go-to
| leadership strategy for a lot of big companies these
| days.
|
| Bad managers manage badly. Senior "leadership" rarely
| knows the meaning of the world.
| mint2 wrote:
| I think I'll start as well. I used to consider Walmart worse,
| and never shopped there. But for several years I've
| intentionally been avoiding Amazon when at all practical. But
| I'm going to avoid them at all costs.
|
| Amazon seems both willfully and unintentionally incompetent.
| They have so many strikes against them.
|
| Their prime dark patterns are hostile enough, and I avoided
| it for years. But I needed a cheap plastic item quickly so I
| did a free prime trial with the intention to cancel. So I
| canceled and got billed anyway because according to their
| rep, on the back end the check box for "auto renewal" was
| enabled which wasn't an option my settings screens. Why would
| it have been? I'd already cancelled and had a cancel
| confirmation email so why would an auto renewal option still
| be activated and bill me? It's willful incompetence.
|
| And their hire to fire practices and practice of churning
| through warehouse workers is terrible.
|
| This Klein bottle incident just shows again how little they
| care about legit users or how easy it is to abuse the system.
|
| They made whole foods a bad experience by treating non-prime
| members as second class customers. I've cut back there and
| now only occasionally buy coffee beans there, and will be
| cutting back even more.
|
| And now Amazon recruiters started reaching out to me for data
| science positions. No I am not interested in working for a
| hot mess that only cares about money.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _They made whole foods a bad experience by treating non-
| prime members as second class customers._
|
| To be honest, there's not much difference between Prime and
| non-Prime at Whole Foods. The Prime specials are very few
| and far between, and usually not worth very much. There are
| more signs about discounts in the store than actual
| discounts in the store.
|
| I think the only thing I ever get a Prime discount on is my
| wife's favorite cheese and occasionally steak. But pre-
| Amazon, the cheese was $4.99 a package. Post-Amazon, I need
| a Prime discount to get it down to $6.99 a package.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Where did you buy it before, did they stop selling
| direct? Any idea why?
| kabdib wrote:
| NewEgg is just fine with scammers on its marketplace.
|
| Last year I bought a new mouse. NewEgg redirected my sale to a
| reseller, who sent me a busted, used mouse in a plastic baggie,
| with cigarette burns on the buttons. After raising a little
| hell, I got a refund. Basic on customer reviews, I'm not the
| only person this seller (betechparts, if you care) is scamming.
| Despite multiple emails to customer support and the NewEgg CEO,
| this seller remains active on NewEgg.
|
| I no longer trust Amazon or NewEgg to supply non-counterfeit
| and unused merchandise.
| tushar1196 wrote:
| great
| EchoReflection wrote:
| Amazon is unfortunately a very convenient plague on our beautiful
| ppanet, and Bezos seems like a borderline (if not outright)
| psychopath. it's late and i need to sleep, but just search the
| internet for "Jeff Bezos is a scumbag" and you'll see that people
| don't "just" hate him because he's filthy rich (nothing wrong
| with being filthy rich, lots of great people are!).
|
| https://trofire.com/2019/01/28/scumbag-jeff-bezos-to-lose-bi...
|
| https://www.grunge.com/143621/the-dark-truth-about-amazon-fo...
|
| there is a lot more but I am tired. we should all boycott/avoid
| using Amazon.
| Applejinx wrote:
| You can't single out Bezos as being a psychopath, though,
| because all people in Bezos-like positions are psychopaths.
| Otherwise they don't end up in Bezos-like positions. The
| question is really, how do you constrain them so they can be
| psychopaths but integrate into society in a useful way: they're
| already making themselves useful in some ways, but by their
| nature they have to push for more and more until they ruin
| everything including themselves.
|
| It's a larger and more interesting question than whether these
| captains of industry are good or nice or healthy. You can
| assume they're not trustworthy and then go from there. Hell,
| all of crypto is based on the idea that people aren't
| trustworthy: not a big stretch to take that literally and
| assume that business operators aren't trustworthy.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't fulminate on HN. That's in the site guidelines:
|
| " _Please don 't fulminate._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Regardless of how you feel about $Bigco, plagues on planets,
| psychopaths, and similar rhetoric makes for bad HN threads, and
| we're trying to avoid those here. Thoughtful critique is
| welcome of course.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27685624.
| [deleted]
| f6v wrote:
| That's just tabloid quality posts.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| It has only really now dawned on me that I really do need to take
| my Amazon custom elsewhere. Amazon is not a place to do my
| shopping any more and inertia is not really a good enough excuse
| for not taking my quantum of influence somewhere else.
|
| So I am shopping around for alternative marketplaces for books
| and general goods. Not groceries - never really fell for that
| Amazon offer.
| WesleyHale wrote:
| Why not order directly from the vendor itself rather than
| looking for a marketplace?
|
| Books can still be sourced from Books-A-Million, Barns & Noble,
| as well as local shops.
|
| If I'm looking for choices for a solution, I'll use a
| marketplace, but after I find a solution, I'll order straight
| from the vendor itself
| [deleted]
| darepublic wrote:
| Every fresh outrage has me shaking my fist. Amazonnnnn!!!
| nr2x wrote:
| I got locked out of my Amazon account due to getting a new phone
| number and 2FA not working. It was a blessing, not looked back.
| beprogrammed wrote:
| It's so hard to watch as Amazon just let's there platform go to
| the dogs. All in the name of hands off automation I guess?.
| helixfelix wrote:
| What is ironic is that there is an annual Award given to an AWS
| employee called the Cliff Stoll Award: For those individuals who
| see something suspicious, not working as expected, show ownership
| and drive it to resolution. As Cliff did to find a KGB spy, and
| documented in "The Cuckoo's Egg".
|
| I wonder what would happen if someone at Amazon pulled on this
| thread and not only solved Cliff's problem but also the root
| cause that enables this kind of product hijacking.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Plot twist: the root cause is greed
| reaperducer wrote:
| I posit that it's not greed. It's laziness. Why do a great
| job, when "good enough" is good enough for 90% of the people?
| That's how business works today.
| mentos wrote:
| The root cause is oxygen.
|
| Anyone expecting any other behavior from utility maximizing
| entities is naive?
| danparsonson wrote:
| I would counter that by saying anyone ascribing that
| mindset automatically to all humans is cynical ;-)
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| Disagree. It's possible to start with that assumption and
| then design systems with that in mind.
| swalsh wrote:
| Allowing trusted sellers to be hijacked is not greedy
| behavior. Keeping 3rd sellers happy will result in less
| returns, happier resellers, and greater platform usage.
|
| The root cause here is organizational failure from
| disempowered employees. At one point Amazon had great
| customer service with empowered represenatives. That's not
| Amazon today.
| [deleted]
| freeopinion wrote:
| I meant to show a simple example of how a vendor offers the same
| product for the same price on their own website and on Amazon. I
| was going to argue that they should mark it up on Amazon to
| encourage traffic through their own site. So I just grabbed a
| random item on Amazon to illustrate this:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Adafruit-2769-Circuit-Playground-Educ...
|
| $99.99 "Adafruit 2769 Circuit Playground Express Educator's Pack"
|
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/3399
|
| $350.00 "Code.org Circuit Playground Express Educators' Pack"
|
| https://www.adafruit.com/product/2769
|
| $99.95 "Circuit Playground Express Advanced Pack"
|
| Then I looked closer at the Amazon listing, thinking it odd that
| Adafruit would confuse the product label. I see that it isn't
| being sold by Adafruit. So somebody is apparently buying one
| product from Adafruit, relabeling it on Amazon as a much more
| expensive product, and misleading buyers. And that's a generous
| reading.
|
| I'm not pointing this out as a warning that it can happen. I'm
| pointing out that I didn't pick this product to illustrate this
| point. I picked a random product to illustrate a different point,
| but ran into this. Granted, this is a uselessly small sample
| size, but sheesh!
|
| One moral of this story: Always buy direct when possible. Never
| buy through Amazon if it can be avoided.
|
| It irritates me to find a vendor who offers a product cheaper
| through Amazon than on their own website. That encourages the
| exact type of abuse seen here.
|
| (I'm not ripping Adafruit for doing this. Of the pages of
| products displayed by Amazon when I searched for "sold by
| Adafruit" I didn't find any evidence that Adafruit even sells on
| Amazon. Lot's of other people--including Amazon--sell Adafruit
| products on Amazon. Somehow they can meet or beat Adafruit's
| price. Have to wonder how many are legit.)
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| Is there any economics term for being "too big to care"? This
| seems to be a case of that, and it seems to be quite widespread
| at Amazon in particular. Just look at the mess that is the AWS
| console UI as another example. With all those billions and
| billions, you'd think that they could remedy a lot of this stuff.
|
| But alas, why bother when you are in such a dominant market
| position? Of course I could think of a lot of reasons, but this
| seems to be the mentality.
| pas wrote:
| This uncaring attitude is directly a result of lack of
| competition. Amazon won. (Sure, there are some other big names
| in the game, but the online retail market is in a pathological
| state. As in case of other "natural monopolies" the network
| effect is very large, thus barriers to entry is absurdly high,
| hence no real competition. The incumbents are optimizing and
| diversifying, participating in meta-games - eg. lobbying,
| regulatory capture, PR, etc. Not to mention the endless cross-
| financing between services that muddies the waters. Eg. just as
| Google Search funds Chrome development, AWS finances the Amazon
| expansion.)
|
| Basically one oneline retail market participant optimized out
| almost all competition.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Retail is not really a winner take all market though. It has
| very low barriers to entry. There are multitude of options to
| use as an alternative to Amazon.
|
| https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-dominates-us-
| ecomme...
|
| To Amazon's credit, they did move fast and bet big on online
| retail first. But since it is a low barrier to entry
| business, there is next to profit to be had in it, so they
| really do not have an incentive to keep pouring into it. Why
| bother playing for 2% profit margins versus Walmart and
| Target and Home Depot and Costco when you can earn 15%+ as a
| platform.
|
| If people stop using you, then oh well, switch to web
| services or media which have double digit profit margins, but
| it is not really a big loss. So I would say the uncaring
| attitude is due to lack of profits margins, compared to their
| alternative.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This, and other instances of this scam make me not want to buy
| anything off Amazon ever again. Where is Amazon in this? Why is
| this even _a thing_? Is there no oversight at all? Amazon has now
| become the Alibaba of the west and it makes me sick to think the
| once beloved marketplace is now just scamville. I typically buy
| from sellers websites now and rarely buy off of Amazon but now I
| feel I need to completely remove Amazon from my options.
| jannes wrote:
| Amazon simply is on the same level as eBay now. (No idea about
| Alibaba.) It's really sad to see.
| zeusk wrote:
| IMO eBay is less scammy.
|
| I've been using it to buy car parts and it is SO MUCH better
| than dealing with junkyards (LKQ/Car-Parts websites suck!)
| and everything that I've got so far including parts from
| Latvia and Germany have been genuine.
|
| eBay too is full of knock-off trash from China but you can
| easily tell those apart from a real listing most of the time
| with reviews being unique per listing/seller. And eBay allows
| for local pickups too!
| taylorfinley wrote:
| The one exception to car parts sites being shit is
| rockauto. Just start typing in the search bar and it
| figures out what year make model and part you're looking
| for. Their search experience is light-years ahead of any
| other auto parts website and might actually be the best
| product search interface I've found anywhere, hiding out on
| a car parts site. I highly encourage anyone interested in
| product search ux to go check it out.
| function_seven wrote:
| Just bought a new radiator from Rock Auto. I think it was
| like 3 clicks to drill down to the part. I just tried
| your method and was blown away. After I entered the year
| and make, and was halfway into typing the model, it
| autocompleted all the way to my trim level and I resumed
| typing "radia" where it suggested all the relevant
| things. Hitting enter, I watched it navigate the tree on
| the left.
|
| Small delights like that are worth serious money.
|
| I love sites that have such a structured categorization
| of their items. McMaster-Carr is the gold standard IMO,
| and RockAuto is pretty close.
| zeusk wrote:
| McMaster-Carr is awesome, but I believe they are very
| business/professional oriented.
|
| I needed some brass thread-ins with bolts and they got
| the job done but now I'm sitting on a minimum sized order
| of ~50 pieces that I won't be using anytime soon. Maybe I
| can resell them eBay. Hah.
| technothrasher wrote:
| McMaster is also typically not cheap. Their claim to fame
| is that they deliver really quickly. We can get stuff
| from them same or next day about 95% of the time. For
| slightly slower delivery but better pricing, Zoro Tools
| has much of the same stuff.
| jessaustin wrote:
| For some M16-1.5 bolts I ordered last week (and received
| the next day), McMaster-Carr was considerably cheaper
| than any other source. [EDIT:] Although Zoro doesn't seem
| to carry that size bolt in lots smaller than 25, I'll
| certainly be checking them for other items in future...
| thanks for the reference! I just wish they sorted their
| filter parameters by size rather than by SKU quantity.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| McMaster is great if you need some obscure bolt, but man
| do they stick you for it.
|
| Want this weird thread bolt? Here's a power plant
| certified 2mm bolt for $75 each.
| driverdan wrote:
| I just bought some grade 8 hardware from them. It was
| cheaper than Fastenal, even with shipping, and they
| delivered overnight. I had to buy in higher quantities
| than I needed but the extras will get used at some point.
| gambiting wrote:
| Interesting that people have these experiences. I use eBay
| a lot, mostly buying 2nd hand computer hardware and retro
| gaming stuff(consoles/games/accessories) and I'd say I have
| problems with as many as 50% of all my purchases. Some
| bigger problems where I want to return the item, some
| smaller ones where I paid extra for postage but it was
| ignored, that sort of thing. The complaints procedure exist
| but it's weak(seller sells a "mint condition" genuine PS2
| controller, got the controller it's all dirty and with
| frayed cable, complain to seller, they say "oh it's mint
| for the age, nothing wrong with it", complain to ebay,
| seller has a week to respond, nothing, ebay sends me a
| label to ship it back, have to go to the post office to
| send it back, wait another week, nothing, ebay finally
| refunds me my money. You know how it would work with
| Amazon? I would complain in chat, they would send a courier
| to pick it up from me the next working day, I would have
| the money back 5 minutes after the courier picked up the
| parcel). And then I had someone send me actual expletives-
| filled email calling me all kinds of worst things in the
| world because I left a neutral(!!!) feedback on their
| account, after I paid extra for 1st class postage but they
| shipped 2nd class. And sellers in general just have no idea
| about consumer laws(yes, if you sold this item as brand new
| then you have to accept a 14 day return by law) which leads
| to arguments and just in general everything being so
| stressful.
|
| I've had over 200 amazon orders last year, didn't have a
| problem with a single one of them. Few times I wanted to
| return something they either sent a courier to collect it
| from me directly, or just refunded me anyway. And few times
| I ordered from somewhere else(urrghhh.....Currys) the
| customer service was absolutely abysmal. I'm just not brave
| enough to order from anyone but Amazon nowadays*.
|
| *here in the UK, understand the American Amazon is far
| worse for <reasons>
| [deleted]
| dawnerd wrote:
| eBay is better as each seller gets a distinct listing Amazon
| letting sellers just kinda take over listings is a huge
| problem and has led to many scams like this and more commonly
| review scams where they sees the listing with positive
| reviews for a legit cheap product but swap it out for
| whatever their money grab is.
| asddubs wrote:
| and also just reordering the same product from the same
| listing and getting a different lower quality version of it
| xenihn wrote:
| eBay has miraculously become more trustworthy than Amazon for
| certain products
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I have never had a bad experience on Ebay. Paypal taking my
| money hostage is another story.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Amazon is a more expensive AliExpress.
| mkoryak wrote:
| This.
|
| I now buy a bunch of stuff from AliExpress because at least
| they don't even try to pretend that (most of) their
| products are crap. When I want something cheap and don't
| care about waiting a month, I go there to get it directly
| from the source.
| 14 wrote:
| I have always had very good experiences with eBay. Several
| times I've been screwed on Amazon. With eBay I can also add a
| lot of filters to my search which I like. I can immediately
| exclude items shipped directly from China. Or search for
| something within 100km so I know I can just go pick it up.
| eBay has just been so much better from my experience.
| beardyw wrote:
| Definitely or worse. I use Amazon as a last resort. eBay is
| first choice for cheap stuff. For expensive stuff I tend to
| go for bricks and mortar stores.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I often find things on Amazon, then go directly to the seller's
| webpage or search for a book on other bookstores. You can often
| get it cheaper, and with peace of mind that it isn't
| counterfeit. Only really buy on Amazon if it really doesn't
| exist anywhere else and really need it.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| Anything with an unfamiliar and suspicious sounding brand, such
| as AMVOOM, is a non starter for me. I actually started
| researching brands.
| Closi wrote:
| This is common across amazon sellers, all major sellers will
| recycle SKU codes to transfer reviews. Amazon knows about this,
| it's everywhere.
|
| They could stop it, but presumably it stops reviews being
| "lost" which helps support their sales.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Both Amazon and Aliexpress/baba follow a "this is a city"
| mentality. Crime and such are understood as statistics, not as
| a thing happening under their roof. This is a "beef up police
| funding next cycle" kind of problem.
|
| Any one scam might be defeatable, but "scamming exists" seems
| to be true in any marketplace with enough participants.
| jn1234 wrote:
| Don't worry their listings on Taobao will be accurate because
| they actually enforce standards.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| To note, buying from the sellers website can be a blessing or a
| curse.
|
| It is true in sometimes unexpected ways. For instance some
| sellers just don't care about notifications; it might be
| because they usually work with professional buyers who work on
| a long timescale ("I need it for this quarter") and will
| contact the seller on a regular basis if they care.
|
| Some sellers just don't want to deal with you. I had a "mom and
| pop" for who my business wasn't really a priority (well, fine),
| sent me random junk after misreading my order, and it was a
| PITA to sort the situation.
|
| Basically, going out of Amazon (the new Alibaba as you say) is
| also returning to the Wild Wild West. There is no real choice
| than to deal with both, but god is it a pain.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Having sold Klein bottles from my website for 20 years and
| from Amazon from 4 or 5 years, here's my experience:
|
| - it's way more fun through my Kleinbottle website. I've
| customized my checkout to what I sell. When there's a
| problem, it's easier to contact a buyer.
|
| - I can show any amount of information on my website; Amazon
| has 5 bullet points and 1000 characters of description. This,
| of course, cuts both ways - a quick logical summary helps
| many people. Long, wordy websites (ahem) can be a problem.
|
| - Amazon provides security that you'll get what they've
| ordered. Buying through my website, well, some people are
| scared off by its primitive style and mathematical humor.
| (well, attempted humor).
|
| - My credit card processor takes a < 3% haircut. With Amazon,
| it's 12% plus $40/month.
|
| - My customers are my friends. Likely, I'll meet them at a
| seminar, colloquium, or if they visit the East Bay. I hope
| they'll remember me by the good service that I try to
| provide. This tends to be easier when I handle an order
| through my website.
| enriquto wrote:
| Oh man, you are a legend to me! I deeply appreciate you and
| I remember that the first purchase I ever made on the
| internet 20 years ago was one of your klein bottles! It was
| such a scary but amazing first experience. It seemed so
| magical at the time, to buy an object from the other side
| of the world! As a teenager I had to convince my dad to use
| his credit card. We were afraid to send the credit card
| number by email, and we used a fax machine by your
| suggestion.
|
| The bottle arrived broken and we were dismayed. We sent you
| a careful report with photos of the packaging and the
| broken bottle (real film photos, that we had to develop and
| then scan into the computer to produce an email). You were
| so kind to send a new bottle and even said sorry. I was
| amazed by your reply and by the fact that people so far
| away could be kind to each other. It really blew my mind.
| At the time, in my country, the internet was seen as a
| really unsafe place were you were not supposed to ever say
| your real name.
|
| To this day, I keep both bottles you sent as my most prized
| possessions. The cracked one is actually cooler, and the
| crack has been growing (you can make the crack grow by
| pressing slightly with the thumb). In a few years it will
| break the bottle apart in a topologically interesting way.
| CliffStoll wrote:
| Of course, Enrique! I'm tickled that you remember me -
| and delighted that both Kleinbots have survived across
| the years.
|
| I do check every item that I send out -- I hold it up to
| a bright light looking for cracks - but sometimes trouble
| sneaks through. I'll do my best to fix things - replace,
| refund, or solve a differential equation (ODE, not PDE's,
| please).
|
| You, in turn, have a responsibility to spread the good
| word -- I hope you're teaching & making this too-mundane
| world into a better place.
|
| Across two decades, my warm wishes to you.
| -Cliff
| alisonkisk wrote:
| You're absolutely right. but very few sellers are like you.
| (That's part of why we love you so much.) Outside the small
| "art" industry, almost none are like you.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I actually remember visiting your site at one point, and I
| think this is a case where going through a seller is a net
| advantage :)
|
| I see it not really on the "shopping" experience, and more
| as you point out because as a buyer I'd need/want way more
| information than what Amazon will ever provide on a single
| page, and also because there is a context surrounding the
| product that is far far away from a "just buy" transaction.
|
| I also see some hobby sites like Bricklink as something
| Amazon will never be a replacement of. Fundamentally I
| think specific seller sites are needed.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Actually, Alibaba appears to have higher standards for their
| product listings, because pages are never merged. So the review
| takeover described in this post would not be possible on
| Alibaba ^_^
| praptak wrote:
| Which makes you wonder why Amazon keeps this scam-enabling
| "feature". Do legit sellers really need it that much that
| Amazon keeps it despite the scams?
| webmobdev wrote:
| Amazon tacitly supports this scam because it only cares
| about sales. It doesn't really care about the sellers.
|
| It also knows that positive reviews have a huge influence
| in increasing sales, and negative reviews really dampens
| sales. This is why Amazon also allows what I call _Product
| Page Hijacking_.
|
| How this works is, Amazon allows multiple models or
| variants of a product to be listed on the same page, so
| that all their reviews are mixed together. This deceptive
| practice hoodwinks many customers. There are 2 kinds of
| product page hijacking - somewhat obvious ones and the
| really sneaky kind.
|
| Example of a somewhat obvious one -
| https://imgur.com/OfZLUeL - here, one product page actually
| lists multiple router models that have different features
| and configurations. While it is a bit obvious, the buyer
| still has to carefully read the reviews to figure out what
| model the review is about.
|
| Example of the sneaky ones are products that only partially
| list their model number, and list and sell slightly
| different variants of model under a single product page.
|
| E.g search for _" TP-Link WR841"_ in https://dd-
| wrt.com/support/router-database/ - there are 9 variants of
| the same model (in essence, 9 different models) that are
| differentiated by a version number (v9, v10, v11 etc. after
| their model name).
|
| But instead of creating a product page for each variant -
| "TP-Link WR841N v9" or "TP-Link WR841N v11" or "TP-Link
| WR841N v13" - only one product page is created under _" TP-
| Link WR841N"_ and all the variants are sold under it. The
| variations in the models are sometimes not minor - some of
| the variants have a higher RAM and even totally different
| CPU! Since all the variants are sold under one product
| page, the reviews posted are actually for all these
| different variants. But the buyer will often have no idea
| of that. And they may not even receive the product they
| think the reviews are recommending!
| bombcar wrote:
| The router issue is even more insidious as the vendors
| may not even know which version they have as the
| manufacturer considers them all identical even though
| they can be entirely different.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I don't think it has reached that stage though - so far,
| they have been clearly labelling the full model name of
| the product on the box and / or on the product. (I think
| it may be illegal for them to do otherwise as they have
| to obtain various certifications when they ship the
| product). So the vendors do know what products they have.
| It is kind of deceptive advertising on Amazon - they
| deliberately mislabel the product model by not including
| the version number (which is actually part of the model
| name).
| syshum wrote:
| There is not much to wonder about, Amazon does it because
| it critical to their fulfillment service, one of the key
| ways amazon makes money and keeps it 1-2 day delivery times
| is inventory mixing, i.e if you order from Seller X, you
| may actually get Stock that Seller Y shipped in.
|
| This is why they need to merge listings into 1. It is also
| why there is soo much fraud on Amazon, and I dont believe
| they will ever fix it, the logistic costs would make
| Fulfilled by Amazon unprofitable if they had to stop mixing
| stock
| praptak wrote:
| Do I understand correctly that seller X might get their
| reputation damaged if Seller Y shipped some counterfeit
| crap?
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Yes, that's correct -- and been a large problem for co-
| mingled inventories.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Yes.
| syshum wrote:
| If they use the Fufilled By Amazon service, which if you
| want to have "Prime" shipping you have to, then yes that
| is possible and more common than it should
|
| The way the service works, is that you the vendor will
| ship your products into a amazon warehouse, other vendors
| will ship the "same items" a amazon warehouse, all of
| these "same items" are mixed together in the inventory
| system, your account is has a credit of "X items" but not
| the specific items you shipped in to the warehouse
|
| Example
|
| Acme Vendor shipped to amazon 15 Logitech MX Mouses
|
| Evil Vendor shipped Amazon 15 Counterfeit Logitech MX
| Mouses
|
| When amazon gets the mouses it take all 30 and puts them
| in a big box, as the orders are filled even if you
| ordered from Acme, you make get one of the one Evil
| shipped into Amazon
| birdman3131 wrote:
| This is only if you enable comingled inventory. I don't
| believe it is required but I barely sell on amazon.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think there's a discount if you allow commingled
| inventory (or a cost to keep it separate) which makes
| sense as Amazon has to track and potentially stock it in
| multiple warehouses
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| The comingled inventory actually is a good idea, just
| flawed. Go ahead, comingle the inventory but keep track
| of where each item came from so when the counterfeit is
| discovered they know where it really came from and don't
| blame the innocent supplier.
| syshum wrote:
| There are 2 levels of blame...
|
| Amazon taking action against the vendor, and consumers
| blaming the wrong vendor.
|
| When you order from Amazon Marketplace you can clearly
| see who you are ordering from, even if Amazon shipping
| the item. Consumers getting a bad product will then no
| only review the item but the seller with negative
| feedback even though the seller they bought it from may
| have done nothing wrong
| bombcar wrote:
| That's what amuses me - what, it requires a few
| additional characters on the stock barcode?
|
| Of course the real problem is the counterfeiters have no
| problem starting a new vendor every few weeks or even
| days, so the damage may already be done by the time the
| reports come back.
| dpwm wrote:
| Many legit sellers - big names in all sectors - use the
| listings merging feature, from kindle books that are almost
| unreadable to network equipment that has variants with very
| different qualities. In many cases, Amazon is the seller.
|
| As a customer I find it infuriating, and it feels as though
| it has been made more difficult over time to read the
| reviews for just the selected product.
|
| I suspect that many transactions on Amazon simply would not
| happen if customers were better informed about what they
| are buying. I have no doubt that this is true across
| retailers - just think of all the things that have been
| hyped and sold that end up in garage sales barely used.
| It's far more common to see crap with five-star reviews
| than something great with three- or four-star reviews.
|
| The feature _kind of_ makes sense for purely cosmetic
| changes, like color - but even then it would be useful to
| have information about the actual variant.
|
| I don't think this is some UI problem. I am quite sure it
| could be solved very quickly by showing reviews for the
| selected variant first, and then making it clear that other
| reviews are for other variants.
|
| There is a way of somewhat mitigating this merging feature:
| Don't just look at aggregate review scores. Read the lower-
| end reviews. If the flaws are petty or expected, then
| that's great. If your variant is the worst of the bunch,
| you'll find out. But even with all that, it doesn't sort
| the takeover problem in the article.
| bombcar wrote:
| The idea behind it was a good one - if you're selling a
| book about cats, and you update the book to fix some typos
| (easy to do with Kindle for example) you don't want to lose
| all your reviews.
|
| And then they added a feature where if multiple marketplace
| vendors are selling the same thing it combines them.
|
| And a third feature lets you classify items as various
| colors of a product (but the same product - think blue vs
| pink socks) and all the reviews get combined.
|
| So if you do all three in the right order you can change
| anything to anything now, even taking another listing.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| It's a good feature, it just needs more safeguards.
|
| I'd also like to see a feature where established
| customers ($x bought over y time) can flag an entry as
| suspect--an entry gets enough flags and a human looks at
| it. If the entry turns out to be suspect everyone who
| flagged it gets a bit more flagging reputation, if it's
| wrong they get a bit less. The more flagging reputation
| you have the more your flag counts towards getting a
| human to investigate.
| rjmunro wrote:
| > And then they added a feature where if multiple
| marketplace vendors are selling the same thing it
| combines them.
|
| It's more the other way around. Initially you could only
| sell something on marketplace if it was something Amazon
| already listed, usually a book. There would be an option
| on the Amazon listing to buy it elsewhere and if you
| selected that there would be a list of non-Amazon sellers
| you could buy the book from - these would normally be
| individuals reselling books they had finished reading.
| jquery wrote:
| > you update the book to fix some typos (easy to do with
| Kindle for example) you don't want to lose all your
| reviews.
|
| Disagree. They should do what Apple does for App Store
| reviews. Reviews of the latest version only, with other
| reviews as "background" data.
| bombcar wrote:
| I don't think anyone would mind that (even the scammers)
| - because what the scammers want is "Five/four star" and
| "400 reviews" to show - they don't care what the actual
| reviews even say.
| Axien wrote:
| Yup. I tried buying Qualatex twisting balloons from Amazon.
| From the reviews I could clearly see some sellers were
| offering legit Qualatex and others were offering cheap knock-
| offs. Since the reviews are not matched to the seller, I
| could not tell which sellers were offering the real product.
| I ended up buying from eBay without issue.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I got rid of prime and have basically stopped buying from them,
| and don't feel any loss. Usually if they're way cheaper on
| something it's over the minimum shipping requirement and I end
| up buying less stuff rather than paying more for stuff. highly
| recommend it.
| Animats wrote:
| _" Amazon has now become the Alibaba of the west"_
|
| Alibaba is _much_ better than Amazon about seller verification.
| Look up, say, "PC power supply". On Amazon, you're lucky if
| you get the address of the seller and a product image.
|
| Alibaba gives you multiple detailed pictures of the object,
| including its data plate. You get the full address of the
| seller, and whether it's the manufacturer or a reseller.
| There's usually a picture of the factory, info about their
| annual sales and number of employees, whether that's been
| verified by a third party, how fast they usually respond to
| inquries. Sometimes even what production equipment they use.
| What certifications they have and who does their
| certifications.
|
| Many of those companies will accept an order for one unit.
| sooheon wrote:
| Yep. You will also often immediately get connected to a sales
| rep via chat, and they will follow up you all the way through
| to shipping and for any repeat orders.
| me_me_me wrote:
| And also, often more then not Amazon listings are just
| Alibaba's products resales that you can get faster for some
| stupid high markup.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| Alibaba & Aliexpress _do_ have a clone problem, but the
| notable distinction is that they don't aggressively comingle
| listings like Amazon does. This means for some common
| consumer items (fidget spinners, etc.) you'll find a hundred
| listings with identical images, slightly varying
| descriptions, and different factories, but you can easily
| choose which seller to buy from.
| mmastrac wrote:
| AliExpress can be pretty brutal. I went looking for a
| lithium power pack and it was clear that almost all the
| listings were the same crap with differently inflated
| capacities that were physically impossible.
| atatatat wrote:
| Where did you end up?
| mmastrac wrote:
| I found a manufacturer that seemed legit and orders a
| suitcase of LiFePO batteries. Will take about 60 days to
| arrive via ship but it was a huge pain to sort through
| the fake sellers.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You are brave buying a high energy chemistry experiment
| from Alibaba. I'd stick to regular retail for that!
| atatatat wrote:
| Like where?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I buy all my 18650 cells from https://illumn.com
| mmastrac wrote:
| I think it's a lot easier in the states to find high
| energy chemistry than it is here in Canada. Prices are
| much higher because the market is much smaller.
| diggernet wrote:
| Maybe DigiKey.com ?
| azernik wrote:
| Notably, Alibaba's core business is B2B. Business customers
| have very little tolerance for bad shipments, and are
| frequently repeat customers such that they would quickly have
| left Alibaba if they could not get predictable quality.
| [deleted]
| okprod wrote:
| _Is there no oversight at all? Amazon has now become the
| Alibaba of the west and it makes me sick to think the once
| beloved marketplace is now just scamville._
|
| This. Most of the time now when I buy from Amazon it feels like
| buying from a garage sale / flea market. Some examples from my
| purchases -- 4 pack of AA Eneloops arrived as 2 AAs and 2 AAAs;
| 2 identical office chairs arrived as 2 different models; Simple
| Human trash can arrived with 3 softball sized dents in
| different places; Spigen phone case arrived with some sort of
| tiny worms/maggots inside a corner of the packaging; Clorox
| antibacterial wipes arrived in generic packaging containing dry
| wipes. Porter Yoshida backpack arrived as a similar looking
| Herschel backpack in the same color.
|
| I remember buying from Amazon and getting solid products really
| really fast; not sure where that's gone. I do use Amazon for
| the free Whole Foods delivery and that's been OK, though
| there's very lax usage of temperature-safe packaging for dairy
| and meat products.
| gabereiser wrote:
| This has been my experience lately as well. Packaging that
| looked like it was broken into or returned leaving me to
| wonder what was left out. I recently bought a GoPro and
| received a shady sdcard with it (the package comes with one).
| When I put the microsd card in the sdcard it wouldn't come
| out. I threw both away. Packages that were busted up.
| Packaging that looked like someone else got there first. I'm
| done. I'm over it. After this mess with Klein Bottles I just
| deleted the app from my phone. I don't have prime so it's not
| that hard for me to never shop Amazon again.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I already stopped. I used to be a Prime subscriber, and use
| smile.amazon.com for charitable benefits. I don't use amazon at
| all now, because I don't trust that I will get what I think I
| am paying for.
| theonething wrote:
| It's hard to give up the convenience and fast delivery (with
| Amazon Prime) though. In my experience, I haven't run into many
| problems with fraud or fake products (that I know of). I try to
| avoid third party sellers and only order from Amazon or the
| seller.
| jorvi wrote:
| I can get pretty quick delivery from a few other companies in
| my country. What I can't get is the very very lenient
| warranty that Amazon gives. Other companies will work as hard
| as possible to make replacing something under warranty as
| painful as possible. Amazon basically goes 'sure, ok' and
| either refunds or sends a replacement.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| Amazon co-mingles inventory so I have in several cases chosen
| 'sold by Amazon.de' or the brand name seller and gotten what
| seem to be fakes. This is common for anything mid-range, e.g.
| good brand-name pots and pans such as WMF, shoes, utensils,
| ...
|
| In other cases I've gotten clearly opened/used items sold as
| new, e.g. woodworking tools.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Fast delivery seems to have become an addiction in our fast-
| paced lives. Do we really need that new thing tomorrow?
| Probably not. Yet we can't delay the gratification.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| I've also found that if I am looking at a longer delivery
| time then I put more thought into evaluating if I really
| need the product, or if I could make do with something
| else, or if there is a better product available elsewhere.
| I then tend to focus on quality and other fitness for
| purpose instead of which item is on Prime delivery.
| nucleardog wrote:
| I order lots of stuff I need on Amazon. Not want, need, and
| while it's not life or death usually I need it sooner
| rather than later. If I can wait, usually I'd just order it
| elsewhere (including from somewhere like Taobao or
| Alibaba/Aliexpress and waiting months for it).
|
| And that's exactly where Amazon is super difficult to
| replace. The current competition is not other online
| retailers but coordinating with my wife such that she can
| look after the kid so I can go sit in traffic for an hour
| to get to the store and grab a couple of things we need for
| some quick home repairs, etc.
| dave1999x wrote:
| It's not about delayed gratification - it's about
| predictability.
|
| I know what I'm doing tomorrow if I can afford to wait for
| a delivery. What will I be doing on a random day next week?
| next month? Less so!
| rjmunro wrote:
| You can often pick stuff up at a local store - e.g.
| certain couriers have deals with local supermarkets. It
| sometimes means pick ups are cheaper than the standard
| paid options.
| syshum wrote:
| Well from a business stand point, I know we have shifted
| alot of our daily supply things for IT from a "Keep 10 of
| these instock at all times" to "Just order it from Amazon
| as needed" due to the faster delivery time
|
| Just as Manufactures have shifted to JIT for many parts on
| the production line, other business processes have as well.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. have almost completely automated
| customer/user service to keep costs down. Their business model
| depends on that.
|
| The consumers are in the position of primitive people in front
| of their gods. They have to come together and pray for gods to
| notice them if they want wrongs to be righted.
|
| It would be better to solve this through legislation.
| ljm wrote:
| I went cold turkey on Amazon a few months back; the only thing
| I've kept is the TV subscription.
|
| What I realised is that it was just a dependency because it was
| so easy to search for and buy stuff. Nowadays I'll buy from a
| smaller shop if I need something, but it's more likely that I
| think "do I _actually_ need this? " and say "no."
| sgc wrote:
| For me their killer feature is ease and certainty of returns.
| If I am buying online I need to option to return items that
| are not as they appear, and Amazon offers that quite readily.
|
| So I think the major hurdle for other businesses is getting a
| reputation for prompt and free return acceptance if they want
| to sell things sight unseen.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| I'm in Canada and recently I started getting Prime items
| shipped from the US, with no indication on the listing or
| at checkout that it was gonna be shipped internationally.
| It makes returns much less pain-free.
|
| For international returns they don't have labels, you need
| to pay for shipping, and they supposedly reimburse up to
| $20 shipping fees but I have found no evidence of an actual
| process in place to claim it.
|
| (I had to return a book because they sent me a hardcover
| loosely packed in a box, from the US to Canada. Of course
| it was damaged in transport. For a place that started out
| as a book store this is really dumb. I re-ordered it from
| Chapters, who packed it properly.)
| ljm wrote:
| I find that I'm more likely to get an item as expected from
| another store, and will only need to use the return policy
| if I change my mind or something else happens.
|
| Whereas Amazon basically doesn't care about the inventory
| it ships and your only choice, really, is to use the return
| policy to actually get what you want.
|
| I'm in the UK so I enjoy some solid consumer rights (at
| least for the time being). Plenty of online retailers ship
| return labels and packaging with your order, should you
| need to send something back.
| zwaps wrote:
| At least here in Europe, returns are painless in almost all
| cases. Give it a shot!
|
| This is especially true for larger and more expensive items
| (like electronics) where - I can not stress this enough -
| it is much, much better to buy directly from the company
| (I'd say 95% of all companies now have d2c shops on their
| websites).
|
| It used to be the case that Amazon had an advantage in
| customer support and returns. I feel this is no longer
| true. I bought an expensive electronic item from Amazon
| and, when it broke, I send it in under warranty (in the EU,
| the first six months are essentially no questions asked
| repairs). Amazon send it to a third-party repair shop that
| send it back to me without any repair.
|
| By contrast, I had to replace an item from a large consumer
| electronics company, which I had bought directly with them.
| They sent me a new one __before__ I had sent in my old
| item, and the new box included the shipping label to send
| back the damaged one. Much easier!
|
| Beyond all this, it's obvious that Amazon is now home to
| fake and faux products. It is my view that the only product
| worth ordering there are cheapo China duplicates, for a
| price where you will be okay if they break after one week
| of use.
|
| Otherwise, go with the supplier. It perhaps takes more than
| a day to ship, but often it doesn't. You can return any
| item for any reason within two weeks (in the EU), and
| damaged items can be returned within warranty anyway -
| usually with less hassle.
|
| So folks, please stop buying stuff from Amazon if you can
| help it. As this - and countless other instances - has
| shown, Amazon is no longer worth supporting, for any
| reason.
| prepend wrote:
| Also, Walmart.com has similar prices and selection. Free
| shipping is $35 though. I've had much better results with
| Walmart packaging and shipping lately.
| allochthon wrote:
| In the US, I prefer walmart.com over Amazon for groceries
| because they do their usual price vetting, whereas you can
| end up paying three times the normal price for something on
| Amazon if you're not careful.
| fma wrote:
| I have their Walmart Plus. If I'm buying a major brand item
| I go to Walmart. 0 chance of knockoffs. I get 2 day free
| shipping. And - if it's in stock locally, many times they
| deliver directly from the store and I get it next day (no
| option to tip...so no pressure there).
|
| I use their store delivery option if I'm buying certain
| groceries or items I need ASAP. Yeah I need to tip - but I
| consider it me saving gas money/time.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > Yeah I need to tip
|
| Wal-mart employees don't get tip workers minimum wage.
| The cost of their service is already priced in.
| fma wrote:
| Walmart sources their instore shopping to door dash
| employees. Doordash delivers their product whether you
| use the Walmart.com, or Walmart Groceries (in store).
|
| The only difference is that it's more explicit it comes
| from doordash when you use Walmart Groceries.
| csnover wrote:
| Their return window is 90 days versus Amazon's 30 and they
| actually let you schedule the return pick-up date. Also,
| their Prime-competitor Walmart+ service[0] ($98/year) has
| no order minimums.
|
| [0] https://www.walmart.com/plus
| WesleyHale wrote:
| > Is there no oversight at all?
|
| What do you expect from a company who has an automated system
| to fire employees, and they're notified if the discharge
| through an app on their phone?
|
| There main objective is volume.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I couldn't believe this, but looks like it's true:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-
| by-...
|
| What a trash company.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| > "Executives knew this was gonna shit the bed," this
| person said. "That's actually how they put it in meetings.
| The only question was how much poo we wanted there to be."
|
| They literally are!
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| While I still purchase some things from Amazon, anything that's
| to be ingested or involves supplying electrical current is a
| no. It's a sad day when GNC is a more reputable place to shop
| than Amazon.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| > This, and other instances of this scam make me not want to
| buy anything off Amazon ever again.
|
| Agree. Our family has nearly weened ourselves off of Amazon. We
| do still buy from there occasionally, but for most things we
| don't.
| [deleted]
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