Octopus Overlords

I accidentally used Prime because they make it too easy to accidentally select it. I was not amused.

Just the other day I accidentally bought an ebook because you can't turn off one-click ordering for digital items.

cnet

The online retailer on Thursday unveiled on its website and app new "virtual Dash buttons," essentially one-click buy buttons that it's placed on its home page and in a new "Your Dash Buttons" section on its site. The feature is only available for Amazon Prime members.

The name for this feature comes from Amazon's physical Dash buttons, which customers can place around their homes to quickly reorder paper towels or Slim Jims.
...
Amazon created the sets of Dash buttons based on the items a customer orders the most, but you can add or delete Dash buttons to create your own set of easily clickable items. Competitor Jet.com, which is owned by Walmart, offers its own version of this feature with its "easy reorder" section, but you may have to click three or even four times before completing an order.
...
Next week, Amazon said, it plans to add more than 50 new Dash button devices to its current line of over 200.

Mine are batteries, flossers, printer ink, and deodorant... not unreasonable, but I am never going to click to buy something without checking prices and options. I may use one to check the experience at some point.

edit: I see you can click the left side to get price and product details. Only the circle buys it.

The next version will cause a purchase to happen if you just look at the button.

Moliere wrote:The next version will cause a purchase to happen if you just look at the button.

Yeah, cripes.
As if it wasn't already effortless to buy stuff at Amazon.
I have never once bought something at Amazon and wished it would have been easier.

Giles Habibula wrote:

Moliere wrote:The next version will cause a purchase to happen if you just look at the button.

Yeah, cripes.
As if it wasn't already effortless to buy stuff at Amazon.
I have never once bought something at Amazon and wished it would have been easier.

Amazon should have a parental control setting to be able to block yourself from buying stuff at 2AM.

em2nought wrote:

Giles Habibula wrote:

Moliere wrote:The next version will cause a purchase to happen if you just look at the button.

Yeah, cripes.
As if it wasn't already effortless to buy stuff at Amazon.
I have never once bought something at Amazon and wished it would have been easier.

Amazon should have a parental control setting to be able to block yourself from buying stuff at 2AM.

Too bad we don't have something like that for children that tweet at 2am.

Heres a great move by Amazon. They have added a setting in the Alexa app that allows your Echo Tap to be fully voice activated! This effectively makes the Tap a rechargeable portable Echo. Its nice that it is a setting because when youre on battery power, this option drains your battery a bit faster, so you can turn it off in the app, if your dont need voice activation active at that time. This really makes the Tap a great option to the Echo now.

Unless you are interested in sound quality, since the Tap is noticeably weaker than the Echo in that regard.

Coming this Fall, Amazon Prime members can stream 10 Thursday night games from the NFL:

The National Football League has reached a deal to stream 10 Thursday night games with Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +1.72% , the online retailer that is aggressively trying to position itself as a premier source of entertainment content.

The one-year agreement is valued at around $50 million, according to people familiar with the matter. That price tag represents a fivefold increase over the NFL’s agreement with Twitter Inc. TWTR, -1.01% for the same number of games last season.

My renewal time is in August. I'll probably drop it then. Their charging taxes is a deal breaker for me.
I'll be buying more locally so shipping savings are curbed and I don't care for their video services or the "cloud".

You made laughing happen.

Not really surprising, but the HBO / Amazon Prime deal (where you get older seasons of HBO shows free to stream as part of your Amazon Prime subscription) will be ending in 2018.

So digging deeper and deeper into the Amazon Prime video selection can really get disturbing. Lesson of the day: if it says Troma, don't even watch the trailer.

hepcat wrote:So digging deeper and deeper into the Amazon Prime video selection can really get disturbing. Lesson of the day: if it says Troma, don't even watch the trailer.

I never would have thought that you, of all people, were unaware of the spectacle that is Troma.

You should expand your horizons.

Carpet_pissr wrote:

em2nought wrote:

Giles Habibula wrote:

Moliere wrote:The next version will cause a purchase to happen if you just look at the button.

Yeah, cripes.
As if it wasn't already effortless to buy stuff at Amazon.
I have never once bought something at Amazon and wished it would have been easier.

Amazon should have a parental control setting to be able to block yourself from buying stuff at 2AM.

Too bad we don't have something like that for children that tweet at 2am.

Ok, I gotta admit that was funny! LMAO

Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

Isgrimnur wrote:

hepcat wrote:So digging deeper and deeper into the Amazon Prime video selection can really get disturbing. Lesson of the day: if it says Troma, don't even watch the trailer.

I never would have thought that you, of all people, were unaware of the spectacle that is Troma.

You should expand your horizons.

I honestly thought they'd folded after such hits as Toxic Avenger and Nuke 'em High. But they're apparently still going strong. And they've gone from just tasteless to "My God, is that really...OH MY GOD!".

Blackhawk wrote:Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

I hear ya. My fear is that they'll eventually be so scattered that folks will just go back to cable in order to have one place to go for all their entertainment. They need to get their act together.

Blackhawk wrote:Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

Still not sure why, with all of the mixed bags out there, nobody has yet tried a true ala carte service. I can abide by a higher cost-per-channel; I'd be happy with 15 channels if those channels are exactly what I want and it would still be cheaper over all than, say, paying Sling $30 for 6 of those channels, Hulu $50 for another 6, and still be disappointingly SOL on the other 3.

With Net Neutrality laws going away, the best hope would be for ISPs to make such an offering. It could stem the exodus from cable cutters - sure, they won't be fleecing customers for $200+ per month making them pay for content which they only want or need 5%; but something is better than nothing. Of course, before this happens I fully expect them to put the screws on other streaming services and render them useless with poor QOS.

Blackhawk wrote:Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

On the flip side, there are more and more content providers making really good stuff--AMC, Netflix, Amazon, etc in addition to the old stalwarts. This became a lot less frustrating for me once I changed my mindset on content availability. I'm not going to have immediate access to everything I want without paying a premium (as has always been the case). I've adjusted my outlook to accept this, and to be happy with the situation that I can pick one or a couple of sources for far less than I was paying before (eg $9.99 + $7.99 for Netflix/Hulu as one example, plus Amazon Prime which I'd pay for anyway vs $50 or $70 or whatever a decent cable package used to cost). That and an effectively-free-per-month antenna get me 80%-90% of what I want. Then I can spend some portion of the difference b/t that $18 and $50-$70 to fill the gaps by renting, buying, or temporarily subscribing to extra services to get me to 95%-99% of what I want, and still come out ahead. Most months, I spend $0 on the gaps, and on an annual basis I'm generally ahead by hundreds of dollars vs the old status quo.

Jeff V wrote:Still not sure why, with all of the mixed bags out there, nobody has yet tried a true ala carte service. I can abide by a higher cost-per-channel; I'd be happy with 15 channels if those channels are exactly what I want and it would still be cheaper over all than, say, paying Sling $30 for 6 of those channels, Hulu $50 for another 6, and still be disappointingly SOL on the other 3.

The answer is 'because the content providers won't allow it.' Virtually all content providers (sans, say, Netflix and Amazon) are parts of much larger conglomerates, most of whom own many different content producers of varying levels of popularity and success and many of whom also own content delivery channels (eg Comcast/NBCUniversal). Those conglomerates are going to bundle their winners with their losers, and will favor their own delivery channels.

What you wish for makes perfect sense from a consumer perspective, and has absolutely no chance of ever happening in the form you want it to. The fact that Apple (market cap far larger than Comcast/Disney/etc combined, $250B in the bank) has been trying for years to do something along those lines and has yet to even launch anything should tell you something. Also, the fact that the closest we've come to any form of streaming a la carte packages that resemble cable packages has been through Hulu (owned by NBCUniversal/Fox/Disney/TBS) and Sling (owned by Dish Network) isn't accidental.

Blackhawk wrote:Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

That's actually the major part of why everyone coming out with their "original shows" is pissing me off. I don't care how great those shows are, that's not why I got a Netflix subscription (I haven't had time to watch any of their original shows anyway, I have way too many older shows that I'm still trying to catch up on). The more money Netflix invests in their original content, the more willing they are to let contracts with major studios go - since they are basically becoming their own "network". Which means more existing prior content that's not available for streaming on their site anymore.

Their model has changed because the content owners went Golden Goose on them. It's not entirely Netflix's fault that they've been forced into a new model. Greed is core human feature, not a bug.

Zaxxon wrote:The answer is 'because the content providers won't allow it.' Virtually all content providers (sans, say, Netflix and Amazon) are parts of much larger conglomerates, most of whom own many different content producers of varying levels of popularity and success and many of whom also own content delivery channels (eg Comcast/NBCUniversal). Those conglomerates are going to bundle their winners with their losers, and will favor their own delivery channels.

The problem for them is this is exactly why people are cutting the cord and/or going with smaller packages. They don't want all the crap the content providers are forcing on them, so they are creating their own a la carte. They really need to wake up and offer a la carte or consumers will continue to drift away and do it themselves by various means.

Blackhawk wrote:Streaming video is getting worse and worse. There are so many services out there now that are pulling (or holding) their content away from the larger services that it is getting harder to find what you want unless you are willing to pay for a large number of subscriptions. It's getting to the point that the number of subscriptions you need for current content is going to end up costing more than the cable bills people left behind for those services.

Eventually this will crumble. People won't be able to afford all these individual streaming services and the revenue just won't be there. I think in the end, consumers will get choice but the content providers will have to be dragged there, kicking and screaming.

What we need is a Steam of streaming

Grifman wrote:
What we need is a Steam of streaming

Unfortunately, it exists, and its name is BitTorrent, and as long as it is so much less hostile to consumers than the networks, the networks will never regain that portion of lost income. Netflix didn't take the world by storm when it did because it had an amazing show or two, it took the world by storm because it was more convenient and affordable than the alternative.

It reminds me a bit the pre-Steam days of PC gaming, between the time when the oceans drank retail, and the rise of the sons of Gabe, when the publishers strode upon the world as gods, and hoped that their power of old would return.

Grifman wrote:What we need is a Steam of streaming

Except Steam's content is limited too. Electronic Arts, *cough*

Amazon has now lowered the free-shipping threshold for non-Prime members back to $25 - because of new competition from Wal-Mart's online business.

Moliere wrote:

Grifman wrote:What we need is a Steam of streaming

Except Steam's content is limited too. Electronic Arts, *cough*

And I kinda "accidentally" rediscovered games I bought on GOG that I *almost* rebought on STEAM. (Specifically, Jade Empire)

Just a heads-up.

Amazon is starting to become a hive of scum and villainy. I've ordered two shirts in the past six weeks, and got ripped off twice.

I ordered shirt A from a seller with ~4 star feedback, size Too Big, 100% cotton. A few weeks later (but within the estimated delivery time), it arrived. Size medium, paper-thin polyester, no tags (which is illegal.) I contact the company. They tell me that they'll gladly give me a refund, but say that it will be so expensive to ship it back that they recommend against it, and will give me a $2 credit instead (which is 100% against Amazon's policy - if you don't have a domestic address for returns, the company pays the shipping. I check back, and they are now at 1 star, with page after page of people complaining about getting plastic shirts instead of the name-brand products they ordered. I complain to Amazon and they start the review process for a refund.

So I order the shirt again, this time from a different company with a 5-star rating. They ship two days later. From what I've seen, I'm fairly certain that the tracking number is fake, and the product was never actually packed (and never existed.) I'll be going through the refund process again, very soon. And I will do so with a less-than-pleasant demeanor toward Amazon letting this happen.



tl;dr - be very, very careful on Amazon if your product ships via third parties. Star rating is good, but I wouldn't touch a company without a large number of reviews going back quite a while.

Even good ratings aren't going to help you when the seller gets hijacked:

Hacks of Amazon seller accounts aren’t exactly new, but they’ve increased dramatically in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It works about the same way so many other hacks and breaches do: Usernames or email addresses and passwords that were stolen in some other breach are sold by those hackers to a whole next wave of would-be fraudsters who then use them to gain access to those users’ accounts on other sites.

Once a huckster has access to an Amazon account, they start using it for good old-fashioned fraud in one of two different ways. For active accounts, they change the bank deposit information and start raking in someone else’s cash. For largely inactive accounts, they create a whole bunch of non-existent merchandise listings to rake in the cash from the “sales” while they can.

Amazon sellers are becoming a target for pretty obvious reasons: There are lots of them, and they make lots of money to steal. One New York-based lawyer who represents Amazon sellers told the WSJ that more than a dozen of his clients have reported hacks, and many of them lost about half of their monthly sales ($15,000 to $100,000) as a result.

When Brian Krebs is getting snookered, you know it's bad.

Prime Now has now expanded their 2-hour free delivery service to the Denver area. And they'll even deliver groceries from Sprouts

Amazon announced today it's buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. That might expand their pantry offerings a bit.

$13B... That's what, like 3 months of groceries from Whole Foods?

#obligatorywholepaycheckjoke

Amazon Prime does more for northern food security than federal subsidies, say Iqaluit (Canada, eh) residents

The consensus in Iqaluit seems to be that everyone with a credit card has an Amazon Prime membership. That's because people can often find groceries cheaper online than in local stores, despite government food subsidy programs.

"Amazon Prime has done more toward elevating the standard of living of my family than any territorial or federal program. Full stop. Period," a local principal, who declined to speak further, said on Facebook.

stessier wrote:Amazon announced today it's buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. That might expand their pantry offerings a bit.

Amazon Cuts Whole Foods Prices as Much as 43% on First Day

Just for grins, I tried the Prime Now 2-hour delivery service. It actually takes a little more than 2 hours, but close enough.

My dad wanted some 5-hour energy, and Amazon has than for $4.99 for 2. There's a $10 coupon for first time PrimeNow users, but minimum of $20 needed for delivery. So I ordered 5 (about $25+tax) -$10, $15. Then I realized they charge $5 "tip" for the driver. Okay, so it's $20 for delivering to my door. My local stores sell them for $3 EACH (or higher). Sounds okay to me, if I want to walk that far.

The order went in by 3:30PM. 1 hour is not available. So I had to pick the 4-6P window. It got here at 5:30P.