I don't think that nuance changes the big picture which is that Amazon has a conflict of interest between showing you the best product that you want, and showing you the product that the seller is most willing to pay to advertise. Quibbling over nuance just gives air cover to this fundamentally extractive rent seeking behavior. We really need stronger anti-trust action in the tech era given the extremely low friction and winner-takes-all dynamics of modern tech economy.

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its_ethan an hour ago | parent [-]

"Nuance isn't relevant here because I've already assumed what they're doing is strictly bad" is what I'm haering.

Engaging with the nuance means engaging with the fact that rent-seeking can only exist where value (real or perceived) actually exists. Amazon is only able to sell these ads because sellers get value out of them through increasing sales using the infrastructure that Amazon built. The fact that they capitalize on that by creating a market for those ad-buyers to compete in (rent-seeking, as you'd call it) is not remotely surprising, they should be able to profit using the systems they built up. This is akin to paying more to rent a "better" booth to sell at at a trading card convention; or for ads costing more during the Superbowl halftime than at 2am on local news. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with any of that.

As far as a conflict of interest, Amazon is still incentivized to get a potential customer to make a purchase, and (more importantly) to make sure that the customer would want to keep returning to Amazon for future purchases. If Amazon develops a reputation of giving suggestions for junk products that people end up buying, people will stop using Amazon. It's "naturally" regulated in that way. Gibing some governing body the power to regulate what companies are/aren't allowed to suggest to their customers feels like it's only relevant if this was a true monopoly.

Re: monopolies- Amazon is not hiding alternative products to those in the ads; customers are people with the autonomy to find the product that best suites their needs, and they still have full capability of doing that. There are also plenty of other ways to purchase products, I'd guess that 95%+ of products available on Amazon can be sold/purchased elsewhere, it's just that Amazon is the most convenient way (for both buyers and sellers).

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dasil003 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

You're right that I jumped to a conclusion, and it's possible I'm wrong.

One thing that is structurally certain though: Amazon and other major corporations have almost unlimited time and direct incentives to find reasons to justify this point of view, while the people whose interests are being potentially being harmed (all Amazon customers) don't have much concentrated resources or focused, actionable incentives at the individual actor level to put together the counter case. I think it's incredibly important keep this asymmetry in mind before dismissing a take like Godin's in favor of Amazon friendly talking points.

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its_ethan 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

I appreciate your response and perspective, and I apologize that my reply had been more snarky than it needed to be.

I'm not here just to defend Amazon, it has it's issues, but it has also provided a lot of value to it's customers, all things considered (building out the largest most efficient supply/distribution chain ever, increasing convenience, reducing cost, and giving access to wide range of product choices). I just think it's important to take full stock of what the benefits are as well as to understand if harms are actually harms or just assumed harms. Basically, just to understand what the tradeoffs are, and that there's likely something positive to be found. I try to apply this thinking to more than just Amazon- like I said, I'm not here just to defend it.

Thanks again for the levelheaded response, I'll leave this feeling like I understand the point you were making better.

	▲	dasil003 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Civil discourse is not dead on the internet! Thank you as well.