johnwdefeo

That's a good question. The original version of the site was published anonymously, and for whatever reason, the mystery of it attracted attention. The novelty faded pretty quickly though and the site hit the skids. I asked family and friends for their input and they suggested that I personalize it.

The 4K77 project is a noble attempt to preserve the original film in a useful format: https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k77/

Prior to that, Harmy's Despecialized Edition was the best thing going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy%27s_Despecialized_Editio...

The original prototype (posted to HN under an account that I forget my password to and didn't register an e-mail with, doh!) was a plain-text mash up of Fakespot (legitimately good products) and CamelCamelCamel (is it really a good deal?).

I was stubborn about designing a logo, adding images and incorporating retailers beyond Amazon, but I eventually capitulated and made good on the constructive criticism that I received. (I'm not sure why I was so stubborn about those things.)

My biggest breakthrough was discovering that real reviews are just as problematic as fake ones. People rate products in weird ways, e.g. This purchase makes me feel safe...5 stars, or, This product is great but I hate the company's politics, 1 star.

Automating the detection of these quirky characteristics is a technical challenge beyond my capabilities, however. I didn't count on so much manual legwork as I expanded the project.

A few notes:

-You can control the size of the feed using the limit=foo parameter

-Similarly, you can tailor the feed using Reddit's filters (e.g. new, rising, top, etc.) by imposing the section in front of the feed name: e.g. foo.rss

-All of the products in the feed are legitimately-rated at 4 stars or better

-Products are selling within 5% of an all-time low price

Lastly, even though Prime Day doesn't officially start until tomorrow, my price tracking analysis shows that a lot of deals (especially on TVs) started hitting this morning

This sub-Reddit is tightly restricted:

Charitable Amazon Smile links only;

Products are rated 4-stars or better and screened for fake reviews; and

*Prices are within 5% of an all-time low price.

I'm still working on the right-rail filters and unsure whether broad filters (e.g. Electronics) will ultimately be more useful than specific filters (e.g. Speakers).