Amazon must hate it's customers. Otherwise, why would they try to sell me books "in the style of" an author before they sell me the books BY THE AUTHOR when I search on author name?
Hint: I asked Amazonians. They told me it generates higher revenue for them, and so "works as required". I know nobody who wants, or expects this behaviour in a search box.
Obviously, Amazon makes more money doing this. People who really just want books from that author will scroll past the other authors to the rest of the results with that author, but many people will spot something else and look at that (in addition to the author they're actually searching for), and then buy more books overall. And people who get really annoyed by these extra unwanted results will just complain on tech discussion forums, while still buying their books from Amazon anyway.
Thats a very interesting spin on "more customer service oriented" or some similar view I was responding to.
> And people who get really annoyed by these extra unwanted results will just complain on tech discussion forums, while still buying their books from Amazon anyway.
Guilty as charged. But an Onyx "boox" is in my future, and I'll be able to deal with Google, Kindle, Kobo, and Calibre sourced books through Android readers on a passive display. At that point, I will be much more interested in other sources of reading material which know "Scott Turow" is a person, not a style.
>Thats a very interesting spin on "more customer service oriented" or some similar view I was responding to.
The problem I see with a lot of people in these discussions is that they think "happy customers" => "more revenue". This isn't true in many cases. Many times, pissing off customers will make more money. Just look at Comcast.
The sociopaths who run big corporations figured this out long ago and that's why these companies make money. They're able to easily take advantage of peoples' naivety and assumptions that other people are like them.
100% this. the ARPU goes down as a function of helpdesk? easier not to have one, than fix the underlying problems which cause people to seek one. This is where google excels: no helpdesk! (unfair: there is one, you have to be in paid tier like google one, and they are excellent)
> And people who get really annoyed by these extra unwanted results will just complain on tech discussion forums, while still buying their books from Amazon anyway.
For a while! But I've now made Amazon my second source for things because the user experience has declined so much over the years. Now I buy books via my local bookstore's website. And for anything else, I'll try to buy via the manufacturer or via something found on Google Shopping before I'll buy it from Google.
I still spend money with them, but much less than I used to. And as their devotion to profit first, customers last increases, I expect to keep edging away from them.
Sure, but the single factor of showing you "books like this author" likely isn't driving you away from them all by itself. If everything else were fine, you'd still be using them as your first source. There's a lot of big complaints about Amazon these days, like counterfeit goods, causing people to look elsewhere.
In books, my primary gripe is the one I seeded above. My secondary gripe is the abysmal state of IPR management: I know a book editor/commissioner/rights-rep and the payment contracts for Kindle are scandalous. It seriously de-motivates a lot of authors.
Enough, that you can get this insanity: three forms, all annoying:
a) volume I and II of a 3 part trilogy available, not part III, except in e.g. German
b) volumes II and III of a 3 part trilogy available, not part I.
c) either of a) or b) but with the entire 3 volume set available as one book discovered *after you buy parts I and II (or II and III) uniquely
Now, I know some of this is down to IPR and economy-specific rights management, it's not all Amazons fault, but its seriously annoying.
There is a version of the fraud in Amazon goods: its people selling $1 guides to books under the title of the book concerned, or a $1 review, or a number of scams which pass through the "too much hassle to reclaim" filter.
I've also had Kindle withdraw books from sale, after I've bought them (like the '1984' incident) which is typically because of a major IPR or production issue. Sometimes, they'd rather stop selling than be love-bombed by the spelling and format issues from readers.
I helped somebody publish through KDP and the other side of the deal, doing e-books and print-on-demand is also a nightmare of a different kind. They need you to use abstruse elements of the PDF spec, to set metadata, and positional accuracy of barcode for ISBN is amazingly finickity. All of their production tooling is built around 'most likely path' which means Windows, so doing this via Latex/Calibre/PDF tools in linux is a nightmare. I wound up taking the same work to a print-on-demand specialist I could actually talk to, to resolve most of this. The people who have to live in KDP have all kinds of hack scripts to fix PDF metadata to meet exacting demands, which seem really abitrary at times.
Oh? Fascinating how much you know about how I make choices. If you really can read minds from a distance, maybe try poker?
Sorry to be difficult, but the general deterioration of the search experience from "find best thing for the customer" to "find thing that makes Amazon maximum money" is a huge part of the problem for me. I've never received a counterfeit from Amazon, but every time I try to use it I feel the loss of trustworthiness. Maybe trust isn't a big deal to you, but it sure is to me.
Maybe trust is a big deal for you, but it isn't for most Amazon customers. That's why they make so much money. Amazon isn't in danger of going out of business because you personally don't trust them. Most people are happy to keep using them, despite their search experience not being in the customer's best interest and instead being designed to extract more profit.
Hint: I asked Amazonians. They told me it generates higher revenue for them, and so "works as required". I know nobody who wants, or expects this behaviour in a search box.