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I think the idea is true if you reverse it: there are a lot of cheap air fryers that are not worth buying over a one or more "good value" alternatives.

This also lines up a lot better with other complaints with amazon: their inability to get rid of counterfeit sellers, the degree to which their reviews (and listings) are gamed, etc. Arguably the reason people buy garbage on Amazon has more to do with their lack of interest in policing misbehavior than ads (though perhaps the ads are the financial incentive to keep being lazy).

You can see this with the knockoff[1] plugin that flags "no-name" brands on amazon. Sometimes this takes out the listings you want and you need to consider it, but I think it's a pretty effective counter to the kinds of scammy ads this poster is frustrated with.

[1] https://knockoff.co/

> there are a lot of cheap air fryers that are not worth buying over a one or more "good value" alternatives

OK, but the customer is the only person who gets to decide what that means. "Reversing the idea" is just making the same (imo faulty) assumption that the author is, which is that there is some known "good value" product that everyone should be buying. What you perceive to be "good value" might be "overpaying for useless features" to someone else.

If anything, allowing for ads like Amazon does is probably more likely to match a customer to the product that's "good value" for them. If someone consistently buys products after sorting price low>high, then you know something about their purchasing habits - giving them a recommendation to buy a $450 air fryer because it's "good value" (decided by who?) isn't helpful when they really just want something barebones for $100.

I don't think that's true. I think deficient or faulty products exist and amazon often sells them. It is not at all assuming that everyone should buy one product - simply that there are psudo-scam products that would be risky for anyone to buy.

Like, are you suggesting that when someone tries to buy a brand-name product and receives a counterfeit knockoff instead, that some proportion of those customers prefer to pay brand-name prices for knock offs? That doesn't seem very likely to me.

> I think deficient or faulty products exist and amazon often sells them.

So nothing I said disagrees with this. I agree that "pseudo-scam" products and counterfeits exist on Amazon, but if something is risky/dangerous for someone to buy, Amazon is at least partially liable for this - I got a product recall from Amazon for a water kettle (that Amazon doesn't make) that had some defect that could lead to scalding.

While it's a problem, Amazon is incentivized to make sure that the customer would want to keep returning to Amazon for future purchases. If they develop a reputation of giving suggestions for junk/scam/counterfeit products that people end up buying, people will stop using Amazon - at both the individual, and word of mouth levels. Your concern is "naturally" regulated in that way. Amazon wants to keep it's customers happy so it can keep selling them things, and selling them crap is a bad way to keep them happy.

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> when someone tries to buy a brand-name product and receives a counterfeit knockoff instead, that some proportion of those customers prefer to pay brand-name prices for knock offs

What did I say that would imply this? No, I am not suggesting that at all. I am suggesting that some people want to pay less ($100 vs $450) for a cheaper product (barebones version) and that's what represents good value to them - not something at the same price that's fake, I really don't know where you think I implied that lol.

Gotcha - then I think you are misreading my 2nd post - directing consumers away from psudo-scam products is "reversing" the understanding. Not assuming everyone wants one perfect product, but realizing that almost everyone wants to avoid known bad products. A bare bones $100 air fryer is good value.

> I really don't know where you think I implied that

When you said "What you perceive to be "good value" might be "overpaying for useless features" to someone else." you implied that there was no knowable standard for good value. I articulated that idea to an absurd degree in suggesting that you were saying some people would be happy to be scammed - which might be true if good value is impossible to understand objectively.

It's possible we're not on the same page on what you meant, but after your clarifying, it still requires defining what a "bad product" is, and that's not as easy as it feels like you're suggesting. A cheap product can be both good value and a bad product, depending on the type of product/intended use/customer expectations/etc. But it's up to the customer to decide that.

The main point I'm trying to make there is that customers are unpredictable (and irrational) and they have autonomy, and they need to bear at least some responsibility in making sure what they are buying meets their needs/wants, regardless of what Amazon was paid to suggest to them. This is true everywhere, like at a grocery store - it would be a silly article if it complained about more expensive or store-brand products being placed at eye-level when a "better deal" might be 3 shelves down. That's essentially what Amazon is doing and what the complaint is.

> you implied that there was no knowable standard for good value

This is something I stand by (see above), but you would have to take it to an absurd extreme to conclude that it means I think people are happy being scammed.

Being scammed on Amazon a separate problem, with other avenues of recourse (filing complaints directly to Amazon/requesting refunds, legal system for counterfeits or misleading advertising, etc.), and Amazon is financially incentivized to avoid it to keep customers happy/returning.

It's not that unknowable. When a customer makes a deliberate tradeoff that's fine. But some products are strictly worse than others. You can build a pareto front out of features and price and see which products are near it and which are way behind.

> This is true everywhere, like at a grocery store - it would be a silly article if it complained about more expensive or store-brand products being placed at eye-level when a "better deal" might be 3 shelves down

Ok, let's look at this example to refocus. I agree with you that OP is mistaken in their analysis - that you can't jump from the most popular item to knowing that item is best for everyone. But I think we have switched onto talking about other things the vendor could do.

Both Amazon and the grocery store both keep records on why people return things (and general complaints) and they would be able to track items that people dislike. Amazon already warns you when an item is returned often, for instance. So I'm saying that Amazon can know when someone buys ads for a product that has higher than normal returns and they may have a responsibility there. In general retailers can be held liable for selling defective products even if people want to buy them so I think there's a framework for warning consumers.

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.

"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).

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.

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.

Civil discourse is not dead on the internet! Thank you as well.

> Amazon is only able to sell these ads because sellers get value out of them through increasing sales using the infrastructure that Amazon built.

That only works if there is competition. If there were another way to search amazon which did not show advertisements, people would use that instead. Because we have to use their search to find anything then they can extract value without returning it.

> 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.

You aren't taking into account that by getting to this position they displaced any alternatives along the way. The customer centric behavior and low prices removed any competition, and now there is no one to offer a better deal. Thus their ability to extract value shouldn't be limitless.

> As far as a conflict of interest, Amazon is still incentivized to get a potential customer to make a purchase

Again, this is not the case where they have no competition.

> 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

What is your definition of a monopoly?

There is probably an air fryer that would be a good choice for the majority of people, and probably also the best choice for a large minority. This is probably true for a large number of popular products.

You'll be thrilled to learn that you can sort any product on Amazon by average customer rating and "most popular" (total number of sales) in order to find exactly that product.

Customers are real humans with autonomy that need to bear responsibility for their own purchases ;)

I think the article’s argument depends on Amazon having a great search engine that can surface the Pareto frontier of air friers, not just a single universal best. Then contaminating that great engine with ads that strictly make it worse.

But as you point out, there’s reason to think Amazon’s search engine is imperfect, especially for new products. Ads are the messy, side-effect-laden solution for that problem.