Hacker News Reader

Comment by reading-at-work | Hacker News Reader

To be the devil's advocate, what if those deals really were the best? What if Amazon sold those items at such a loss that no other deals could compare? (That's probably not the case, but just thinking hypothetically).

Also:

> That potential favoritism can come in varied forms... even right at checkout when an Amazon customer is ready to buy an item from a non-Amazon brand. This last tactic could be compared to a cashier in a physical store showing you a deal for the store’s own brand when you walk up to pay for a competitor’s product.

Would it really be considered anti-competitive if a brick and mortar store did that? I feel like I've had cashiers actually do that before, and I was grateful because usually it's a better deal on some generic stuff where I don't care what brand it actually is.

View on HN

The echo is a way for you to buy stuff from them - so that's where the advantage is for Amazon.

It's like saying "I got a really good deal on a billboard for my house." and all it does is show ads for someone else.

That's disingenuous. Obviously the echo is capable of far more than purchasing things from amazon. I'd guess that most echo users don't actually ever use voice purchasing.

I've never used mine for purchasing and I use it an absolute ton. Mostly for cooking and converting units so I dont have to put my fish-covered hands on my phone to calculate things. If doing things in the kitchen was the only thing I used it for it would still have been worth the investment.

Amazon Echo devices are so cheap that Amazon probably isn't making any profit at regular prices. Amazon is practically giving them away to generate more sales, more lock in and collect more data, bringing them well beyond a replaceable online store.

Of course when the devices are heavily discounted on Cyber Monday they are among the best possible deals (in terms of hardware per dollar). The only thing I know about that matches this is Valve selling Steam Links (last year) or Steam Controllers (this year) at 90% discount for mostly the same reasons.

This is why avoiding a conflict of interest is generally seen as the right thing to do. Not everyone will (knowingly) take advantage of such a situation, but questions will always be raised that cast doubt on the whole thing.

> To be the devil's advocate, what if those deals really were the best?

Yep, I'll defend Amazon on this. I've bought Amazon's Goodthread chinos, and they are by far the best quality pants for their price range

I don't believe that scenario holds water.

All five of the devices in the list are surveillance or spy devices which capture data that Amazon likely considers very valuable. As such, Amazon is likely selling many of these devices at cost or below because they provide Amazon with more data.

The list of five devices includes three cameras and two alexa listening devices.

Lots of hyperbole there. Ring doorbells aren’t cheap and I pay for the subscription plan (fairly limited without it). It generates revenue on the subscription not the data.

I dont doubt they make money from subscriptions, but they have been reported as giving discounts/free Ring products to residents that choose to share.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/06/polic...

I agree with your sentiment that their gadgets are mostly glorified surveillance apparatus. However, that's not a valid reason to bar them from promoting those products. It doesn't really have a bearing on the scenario I described.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com