Technology

My favorite is I ordered dog food. It was scheduled for 2 weeks (with prime). It arrived next day. Amazon still said it wasn't shipped yet. To this day "expected delivery date is currently unknown" in the Amazon app. I ordered it in May. It does give me the option to request refund but I haven't done it as the food was actually delivered and this seems like some employee forgot to scan the sticker at some point.

Yea that was to kill small businesses that couldn’t compete.

Let alone the predictive pricing. "Oh you usually run out of shampoo mid month? Well guess what, shampoo prices double on the 10th and just happen to drop back down on the 25th. "

Google has had a feature variant of this since at least 2014. Back when Google Now was a thing (before LLM's took off) there was a significant outcry about privacy because Google was scraping your emails to tell you when your packages shipped and when they would be delivered, to remind you when your flight was and what time you needed to leave for the airport and if your gate changed etc.

The thing that bothers me about this is, at that point it could be a opt in thing (on the email providers side), and it shouldn't be up to Amazon to use "customer protection" as a reason to enshittify their services so that they can continue to be anti-competitive.

Does the article explain what the "DoorDash problem" is?

Same. Pretty often I want to pull up the specs on some computer part, but these days nothing is clearly labeled with a part number. I don't think my motherboard has one at all, certainly none where I can see. I would just search my email for "motherboard" and the most recent result was probably the one I wanted.

Yeah I used it to manage my finances. In my banking app it just shows up as:
Amazon $24
Amazon $12
Amazon $16

Before, I checked the emails to label and tag the transactions according to what they actually were: electronics, furniture, etc. Now I have to log in and track down that one hidden page that splits your purchases into actual transactions instead of one infinite scrolling list of items, because Amazon will group the purchases seemingly arbitrarily based on it's own shipping algorithm.

They made the entire UX hostile just to spite A.I. users. Not the first time they've done something similar; I'm getting pretty tired of their shit. In fact, I think I'm going to try some alternatives in my country and see if they're better to use.

Don't forget the fact that you absolutely, positively cannot trust the quality of the item that will arrive. At this point, you're much more likely to get some third party knock off with a lot of popular items.

Usability-reducing features like this do me a favor by giving me yet another reason to use Amazon less and less.

Thats what I was thinking, since now they all compete against each other we can expect everything to get shittier as more walled gardens go up.

Which is stupid because it's the equivalent of saying "you can't send someone to Walmart to buy an item for you. That should be illegal!"

For me its quite funny to discuss Amazon.. I live in a country where Amazon does operate, but its not a main thing at all. I dont think they even have their own delivery vans here, its all done via third parties because it doesnt make sense enough to have their own systems for the 43 people who use it.

Some time ago I was discussing Amazon with an American and said that I have never needed Amazon for anything in my life. Then they asked me "well where do you go when you need dog food, a new drill bit set and bathroom cleaning products" and I just said "to the shopping center 700m away from me?" I dont know if Americans have forgot that malls are a thing, or have malls disappeared from there completely, but based on that guys response, it was like I was talking about going to a different planet. Some people are way too deep into these things... Its pretty concerning, in my opinion.

Same, but it takes effort. Even when items aren't Amazon exclusives, Amazon still contractually requires the seller to give them the best price, so we all still pay the Amazon tax. Also, even if you order direct from the manufacturer's website (for the ones that still have a website instead of just a Facebook page), it's often shipped or fulfilled by Amazon. Or, if you find a decent alternative store like jet.com or woot.com, Amazon just buys them.

Yeah. Shit like this sorta reminds me of the reports I’ve been hearing about warranty replacements on drives. They don’t send you a replacement because that drive is worth twice what it was so they refund your money you originally paid. It’s almost like it’s turning into eBay and the highest bid.