Amazon: the shittiest, most ghastly company on earth - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 12:31:07 am
content: https://youtu.be/mxqz2g05MTI

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 01:14:11 am
content: Just like this one too.https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2020/10/08/the-details-on-apples-lawsuit-against-geep-canada/What sort of non sustainable society are we getting to ...

author: Miti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 01:59:20 am
content: Color me surprised!The solution is simple. Don’t buy from Amazon. I don’t.As for Apple, I’m still using an IPhone 7 Plus.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 02:06:01 am
content: I'm still using my iPhone SE, it's the second smartphone I've owned and my second iPhone. I think I got the first one back in 2010. Not many complaints, although I sure liked the UI in iOS 6 better than anything that has come after.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 02:52:32 am
content: Quote from: eti on June 23, 2021, 12:31:07 amI wonder how much of this can be taken seriously, though, when you look at who funded this hit piece and their tendency to exaggerate, just a little bit.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 04:40:17 am
content: Certainly, Amazon's business model can be criticised, but first let me ask: Where did all that product come from?Answer: From internet sales wannabes who have some capital they pour into inventory, without having a GOOD idea of their market and sales potential. As a result, they over-buy.This then leads to Amazon warehouses getting filled with product, a significant amount of which does not move. Since they cannot just add space at a whim, they have to have a rational process for making room for product that does not have this legacy. Charging for storage is the obvious method - it's been used for absolute ages. It then comes down to the "merchant" to decide if they want to pay up in the hope their products sell or cut their losses.Some merchants will do this as a planned strategy - buy cheap and get as much out of a product before getting out - while others (those less experienced and, likely, greedy and/or more hopeful) get caught out and are forced to make that decision.Yes, Amazon has provided the platform for this to happen - but they can hardly be blamed for what is actually being destroyed.Oh, and giving the stuff away in anything more than token amounts is a sure way to undermine the market of those merchants that might have a chance.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 04:51:47 am
content: Put another way, the waste has already occurred, long before the titular event: someone decided to throw the dice on some capital, and at that moment it's a write-off, either it sells and turns a profit or it's money spent. Period, doesn't matter what happens to it after that.If you want to solve waste, regulate the business practice.I don't see that such regulations even need to be restrictive. Indeed they ought to beprofitable. Don't make things you aren't going to sell, only stock what you need -- lean manufacturing probably helps a lot, and this is already practice in many markets. The problem arises in part, in trying to make too much profit too soon: making an initial investment and expecting immediate payoffs (i.e. having product manufactured, and placing it on the marketplace), versus a slower burn with lower best-case rewards, probably the same average outcome, and less materiel wasted.Tim

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 07:38:55 am
content: Fervent greed overrides sanity

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 23, 2021, 07:23:50 pm
content: @etiYou might be interested in those then:

author: aix
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2021, 04:50:02 pm
content: I really don't get the economics of this, especially for higher-valued items. Rather than destroying the stock, would it not be advantageous for whomever owns it to sell it at a deep discount? Or is that harder to do than it sounds?

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 03:09:39 am
content: Quote from: richnormand on June 23, 2021, 01:14:11 amApple are very ready to sue at a moment's notice.They even tried it with Woolworths Australia, who had a logo supposedly symbolising "fresh fruit & vegetables", in the form of a stylised "W" in the form of an apple, with the parts of the letter looking like a peeled apple skin.Of course "they were dreaming" -----taking on a major Australian company in Australia.They went away "with their tail between their legs!"Interestingly the "Apple" symbol turned sideways, looks like a three quarter rear image of Olaf the snowman from "Frozen"------maybe they should take on Disney, too?I never worked out why Apple weren't sued by "Apple" records, whose logo predates the computer company.

author: johnboxall
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 03:37:38 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on June 28, 2021, 03:09:39 amhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 04:59:06 am
content: Quote from: johnboxall on June 28, 2021, 03:37:38 amObviously I am "out of touch"!

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 11:08:25 am
content: The first of the Macs to have built a in dac for actually plying audio as opposed to beeps, had a start up chime the filename for which was sosume, SoSueMe.Yea there was a lawsuit back in the day.

author: voltsandjolts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 11:32:37 am
content: Industrial scale manufacturing has always been bad news for the environment, because all products are put there at the end of their useful life. In more or less damaging ways. My mind boggles just at the volume of cleaning chemicals that go down the drain and straight to local water courses or the sea. Every supermarket on the planet has shelves full of chemicals labelled damaging to aquatic life, and that's exactly where it ends up!Anyway, I digress.Amazon is simply another player, helping us along our fast track to environmental destruction.On the plus side, at least some folks are getting rich along the way

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 11:34:59 am
content: Quote from: voltsandjolts on June 28, 2021, 11:32:37 amReminds me of a tv show, with a person yelling something along the lines of, "these chemicals are messing up with frog's brains".

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 11:45:42 am
content: Quote from: richnormand on June 23, 2021, 07:23:50 pmYep!! I saw those videos just the other day. They embedded Tracking Devices in a lot of RETURNS, to see wherethey went. Most ended up in Destruction warehouses, as it's cheaper than bothering to process the stuff!!!Some people have the right idea.... buy it bulk & next to nothing, and re-sell it!!!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 07:47:11 pm
content: I refuse to do business with any company I find out is destroying perfectly good stuff just to keep it out of the hands of someone else. They really ought to tax that heavily to incentivize selling or donating anything usable to charity. Anything other than turning it into landfill. The cost we pay for goods does not cover the true cost to the environment.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 08:30:07 pm
content: Guess you'll starve then. Supermarkets do the same thing... At least there's a chance they mark down or donate old items?Tim

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2021, 11:12:15 pm
content: Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on June 23, 2021, 02:52:32 amSo who do you think "funded this hit piece"?ITV Newsis an independent news organisation providing news to a number of TV companies, they don't even have the moral hazard of having advertisers for customers like the TV companies themselves, or newspapers or magazines for that matter.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 01:09:59 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on June 28, 2021, 03:09:39 amThe court probably thought they were comparing apples with apples...https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compare%20apples%20and%2Fto%2Fwith%20apples

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 02:16:49 am
content: Quote from: aix on June 24, 2021, 04:50:02 pmThe destruction like likely the cost of selling, fulfillment, plus book keeping exceeded the profit of the sale. So rather than throwing good money after bad, the wise choice for the seller might well be just path of minimum additional lost.This point was raised in earlier reply, but it is good to repeat it: One should keep in mind that Amazon did not take any part in creating those "stuff" which ended up being destroyed. They merely provided a channel to sell stuff. While I don't particularly like Amazon the company, or Jeff Bezos the person; I think blaming them for such destruction is a bit unfair.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 02:27:08 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on June 29, 2021, 02:16:49 amThey aren't the only one to blame, but they certainly can be blamed. For example, they could instate policies that are less wasteful, more lenient to suppliers, or incorporate carbon credits or energy cost or some other environmental factor into their policies / fee structures; something besides the purely financial motive that we can assume they are using.Likewise, we can blame the suppliers for ordering in excess of what they were actually able to sell; they should've done better market research. This doesn't even need to be a supplier problem, as they can do everything right and still get shafted by Amazon -- how many Amazon Basics clone products have displaced their original sellers?Or we can go higher up and blame the government for not creating and enforcing such policies -- and indeed this would be the most effective one, as Amazon is simply using an industry-standard process. This is absolutely a case where greater government regulation/oversight yields a freer market for all.It's a big operation, with many players involved, and it makes sense to have continuous (or at least finely divided) amounts of blame, no need to pin it on one lone actor.Tim

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 02:32:56 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 28, 2021, 08:30:07 pmWhen food is rotting there is not much else you can do with it unfortunately, it's perishable. They do try to distribute it though, a while back I volunteered with a bunch of my coworkers at an organization that collects all the expired and about to expire food from Costco, sorts through it and then donates some of it to food banks and sells other stuff at deeply discounted prices at market that sells low cost food to low income people. The stuff that would not survive the process was composted which turns it back into highly fertile soil. My mom has a friend who belongs to another organization that does a similar thing with supermarket foods, they end up with so much excess that I end up with all kinds of random food for free, it's far from perfect but at least they're trying. They don't destroy perfectly good stock just to keep it out of someone else's hands.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 03:08:50 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 29, 2021, 02:27:08 amAmazon often is grouped with companies like Google, Apple, and the likes. But Amazon isn't exactly a high profit company. Amazon's on-line sales and fulfilment operates on much thinner margin than say Google's ad sale and Apple's HW/SW (apps) lines. They don't have as much room to maneuver as you imagined.This is probably shocking to many:Apple made more profitin three monthsthan Amazon has generatedduring its lifetime!https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/11/apple-made-more-profit-in-three-months-than-amazon-has-generated-during-its-lifetime.html

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 07:45:13 am
content: Quote from: dmills on June 28, 2021, 11:08:25 amFYI, all Macs ever made have a DAC — Macs don’t have, and never have had, a beeper. The sound named “sosumi” was added, IIRC, when they added an audioinput.Same era that had one machine with the internal code name “Carl Sagan”, and when he found out and threatened to sue, they changed it to “BHA”, which Sagan later found out was short for “buttheaded astronomer” 🤣

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 07:48:31 am
content: Quote from: Raj on June 28, 2021, 11:34:59 amYou mean Alex Jones frothing at the mouth that chemicals are turning the frogs gay?

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 08:04:56 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on June 29, 2021, 03:08:50 amAs they say, Amazon is playing the long game. Making stuff cheaper until competitor dies out.They've already defeated all book sellers out there.But I don't understand the appeal of apple at all.How come people are paying so much for a mediocre devices that are expensive to buy and repair. And they also go obsolete quickly.I've never seen an Iphone or android that can even play a YouTube video without bugging out after 5 years of use.Quote from: tooki on June 29, 2021, 07:48:31 amYup, the one who shouldn't be named.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 08:47:32 am
content: Quote from: tooki on June 29, 2021, 07:48:31 amIt's an interesting phrase, there's some nuance behind it actually:The reaction clip, of course, is just mimetic gold; but it's based on a true story, of suppressed science, distilled over the years through a conspiracy-theoretic lens, down to the simplest possible description. They're not "gay" of course, that's an abuse of language, but hermaphroditic deformities -- intersex is the proper term(?) -- were found; the effects were causally proven; and the science was discredited by big agro as well as they could muster, because obviously, they have a financial stake in this.So it's interesting to see the phrase used here, understanding how it came to be. It's the perfect case of a phrase that sounds like a joke, while hinting at a dark, disturbing situation.Another, albeit less extreme, statement comes to mind: "the solution to pollution is dilution". Now, it's perfectly true -- see, it's easy to laugh at this statement, or question it morally -- and rightly so; but it works because it works. The problem is not thata companyis releasing toxic chemicalsper se, it's that enough of them are doing it, in great enough quantities, that, over anything from local areas to entire ecosystems, concentrations rise to dangerous levels. And often those levels are unimaginably small (~ppb, even ppt for PFAS, dioxins, etc.), and the effects on various species are unpredictable.It's not that a resource is being exploited, it's that it's being exploited too aggressively for the number of users of that resource -- it's the tragedy of the commons, and the only solution is through cooperation, whether as a self-regulating industry, or by government action.So, even outside of pesticides (and their production byproducts, or of myriad other chemical products), just say, the sheer disposal of plastic waste is troubling (e.g. microplastics entering food chains). Never mind the sheer amount of greenhouse and other gasses fed into the atmosphere. It's not about whether we are making an impact, it's absolutely the case that we do; the question is, are we using up the resource faster than it cleans itself, or than we can clean it? And wasteful practices such as highlighted in this thread, clearly aren't helping in that regard. It's a problem consisting of myriad actors, subject to diverse externalities; it's not a problem that can be solved by the individual, or a company necessarily, or even a country; it requires massive and effective cooperation by all stakeholders of the respective resource, of whatever size that resource is.Quote from: Rick Law on June 29, 2021, 03:08:50 amI mean, it's not like Bezos is exactly strapped for cash or anything. He could float them personally for years with his war chest.Anyway, that doesn't matter -- they can raise prices to compensate. Note this is only possible when regulations are applied uniformly across the market, where everyone is required to incur the same added cost. Making adjustments for barriers-to-entry or weighting judiciously by company size, or impact or overhead or whatever.It would be ludicrous of course to single out just one company. Again, it's not just one, there are many actors to blame!Heh, a possible consequence might be making brick-and-mortar stores relatively more profitable; that would seem to hint at the tradeoff of local supply versus delivery, under such a [environmentally responsible regulatory] regime. I mean, if it worked out that way, I can't say I'd be disappointed! But it may well be the case that delivery is better, I don't know.But anyway, I'm not a policy wonk, I don't know what's being discussed, if anything like this, right now. There's probably something. I'd suggest go reading about that directly, to see some better circumscribed, actually studied, proposals.QuoteI agree wholeheartedly, they need to be regulated as well! They're aggressively anti-repair, as are many other manufacturers that are dependent on a captive-service or recurring-sales model.Tim

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 08:56:14 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on June 29, 2021, 02:16:49 amThe logical (and ridiculous) extension of this is telling Amazon 'I don't want this item, but give me a refund and I'm prepared to dispose of it at no further cost to you'.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 09:11:03 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on June 29, 2021, 08:56:14 amYou say that like it's not already SOP for a lot of sellers/products.Tim

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 12:22:26 pm
content: Actually that's true, it certainly seems to be the way that most international sellers on ebay work.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 01:00:39 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on June 29, 2021, 07:45:13 amThe G4 Cube doesn't - audio output is via an external USB DAC instead.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 01:38:53 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 29, 2021, 08:47:32 amA biochemistry lecturer I used to know (Dr. John P. Sumpter, Brunel University) was researching this in the late 70s/early 80s and by the time I first knew him circa 81/82 the effect was established science. His research had moved on from "does this happen" to "what other agents can cause this to happen". (BTW as far as terminology used goes, the effect most often observed, and described as such, isfeminisationin males of aquatic species.)QuoteSome agents still have an effect even when diluted beyond homeopathic levels. One of first agents identified as troublesome was synthetic human oestrogens, which have a feminizing effect on male brown trout after they have been consumed as birth control pills by human women (whole body dose 20-100micrograms/day), excreted, passed through waste treatment facilities and passed back into watercourses - a dilution ratio of billions or trillions to one. One of the things Sumpter discovered was that there was a synergistic effect between oestrogenic pollutants and detergents that were present in treated waste water. So the problem isn't just single compounds, but the whole chemical soup of many compounds present as pollutants.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 07:00:40 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on June 29, 2021, 02:32:56 amFor the last 20 years, once a week, my parents (and I, when I was younger) pick up the *just* expired bakery items from Costco and bring them to a local pantry. (The bakery items are put in freezers to preserve them.) Costco basically assumes no liability if the food items go bad, covered by some sort of Good Samaritan law. I think they probably get some sort of tax write-off too. I don't know how this could be applied to other (non-food) items, but it would be better than trashing them.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 08:39:29 pm
content: Quote from: Raj on June 29, 2021, 08:04:56 amYou're wrong on both accounts. I'm writing this on a 2017 MacBook Pro that is still supported by OS updates. When I bought it, its price was about the same as a similarly-equipped business class Dell laptop.Since you obviously don't like the products (for whatever reasons), you feel compelled to piss on them. I don't understand that.Oh, and Apple just replaced the keyboard/trackpad/battery assembly for free.QuoteWhat does that even mean?

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 08:43:01 pm
content: Greed. Is. Good.Full stop.

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2021, 10:45:48 pm
content: Quote from: Cerebus on June 29, 2021, 01:38:53 pmNatural estrogen has the same effect and is also excreted in urine. And there's a whole lot more of that than synthetics.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2021, 12:12:11 am
content: Quote from: bson on June 29, 2021, 10:45:48 pmNatural oestrogen biodegrades much faster than synthetics, the synthetics having been explicitly engineered for stability to enable them to be packed up as pills. Synthetic oestrogen was the first (and rather obvious) candidate to be explored in the face of observed feminisation of fish, the real issue is the whole panoply ofotherman made oestrogenic compounds that get dumped into the environment. Subsequent to fingering synthetic oestrogens it has turned out that there are a huge range of man made compounds and their breakdown products that act as endocrine disruptors or have reproductive toxicity. (My ex-wife was a student of Sumpter's and also worked for a while in the reproductive toxicity research lab for a very large chemical company that actually took a surprisingly forward thinking and responsible attitude to knowing what they were doing instead of just dumping the stuff they were making into the environment, which is I know way more about this than I've any right to.)The point is that we've known about this stuff for alongtime - I'm blathering on from stuff I learned 40+ years ago - and we collectively still haven't got around to taking adequate measures to prevent these assorted compounds getting into the environment in biologically significant quantities, coincidentally over exactly the same period that computers have gone from "that big thing in the air conditioned room over there" to the ubiquitous, always-on, always-connected, thing in everybody's pockets, so it isn't from a lack of technological development capability over the same period. As with dealing with rapacious companies destroying perfectly good products for reasons of, basically, greed, there has been a lack of political will to tackle the problem.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 12:07:56 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 29, 2021, 09:11:03 amI'm reminded of years ago, looking after security systems in Prisons. They had massive productions of vegetables in one countryprison, that served them, and certain other prisons. After that, they monthly Bull-Dozed literally TONS of food back into the ground!They said they are not allowed to sell it, as they are not allowed to 'compete' with other local businesses... So I asked about 'giving'it away to the many homeless shelter managers/organizers, for example, the 'Salvation Army' here in Australia...They said they can't even do that!, as they often buy (at a very reduced rate) such produce from people & organizations, and so arecutting them out of their business!! So just constantly bulldozed into the ground. (And I mean a LOT!). That's politics...

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 02:08:15 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on June 29, 2021, 08:56:14 amThis is already Amazon policy for occasional, low value items.They call it "returnless refund".I bought a DIN rail 20A contactor from Amazon a few weeks ago for around $16. Happened to notice a few days later that it was now being sold for $5.19. A2Z (support) says they can't do a price adjustment, but I can order another one and return the one I got.OK, sounds wasteful, but it's your dime, not mine. Order a new one (two, in fact, to have a spare). Started the return process for the old one. "Here's your money back; no need to return the original one."Um, okay. Works for me, I guess...

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 05:04:08 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on July 02, 2021, 02:08:15 pmTwo examples of how AMZN's customer service is random:1. A friend ordered a copy of the Can "Live in Stuttgart 1975" triple LP, for $50. (I see it's on Bandcamp for that price!) AMZN mistakenly sent him TEN copies. He contact AMZN and said, "uh, you should probably know about this mistake." AMZN said to not bother returning the extra copies. He put out the word on Book of Faces that he had nine copies he'd sell for $40 each incl. shipping and he'd donate the proceeds to the local food bank. Naturally I took him up on this!2. I ordered some stupid 3D printer bits ... some nozzles and a test tube full of the acupuncture needles those idiots call "drill bits" that you use to clear nozzle clogs. Well, the order arrived in a thin envelope and the test tube was smashed and the needles were mangled. I contacted Amazon to say the package was damaged, and they immediately ordered a replacement BUT they demanded the original package be returned. Six bucks worth of crap, and they want it back.My takeaway from this is that the books/music division is different from the department that manages all of the third-party sellers (like the vast network of anonymous Chinese 3D-printer-parts sellers).

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2021, 11:08:48 pm
content: Need not be market segmented, it might be a supplier preference. Or some products/markets/suppliers/other criteria might be more prone to return abuse. Who knows.Tim

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 09:29:56 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on June 29, 2021, 08:39:29 pmNot anymorelatest Imac can't even have their screens at a leveled angle and backlight bleed (they literally shoved an experimental display technology into final product)search #BendgateThe fact they are also still manufacturing and selling butterfly keyboards which are flawed.The fact that prices of brand new mac books never fall, regardless of the modelapple products are just tools mainly for artists and fashion accessories. (sure others can use it too, but it's not ideal(dell is no good either BTW)Quote from: Bassman59 on June 29, 2021, 08:39:29 pmI don't know how exactly they do this, but if you use a phone for 5 years, they become so slow, that they can't even play a video stream correctly. (since it's a stream flash degradation shouldn't play a role here.) (apple and only apple was sued for this)And actually I hate HP more. Specially their bloated drivers.Quote from: GlennSprigg on July 02, 2021, 12:07:56 pmGive an inch, they take a mile. do that ones, and they'll camp there for food. better to just sell it in time.Quote from: sokoloff on July 02, 2021, 02:08:15 pmmaybe because the same category of product is something they didn't want to risk liability from reselling it untested...imagine if you were to sabotage an MCB and they resold it. or if it was to get some scratches.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 01:37:10 pm
content: Quote from: Raj on July 05, 2021, 09:29:56 amDoubtful. In that case, I'd expect they'd sell the item as non-returnable.In this specific case, I had a second, same exact contactor that I returned and that one is sitting on my counter with a QR code on my phone to drop off at a Whole Foods. (They apparently were happy to give me one for free via returnless refund, but not two.)

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 02:54:19 pm
content: Several on here have mentioned doing proper market research to prevent overbuilding of product. If that worked you wouldn't have such things as TP shortages or bouncing prices of petroleum products. Even if you could correctly understand market demand you would also have to have a complete understanding of all suppliers so you would know how much product your competitors were planning to make. It is really easy when you only buy things to oversimplify the problems of those who produce them.One of the big drivers of these problems is Amazon's instant delivery model. When you promise people extremely fast delivery you must have stock to support all potential customers. If everyone would accept delivery in one year or more, manufacturers could build on purchase and there would be little waste. People don't seem to be lining up for longer delivery times, at least partly because we have trouble predicting our needs that far out.Here in the US product liability laws are one of the reasons product is dumped rather than given away. If someone runs with a free pair of scissors and injures themselves there are legions of lawyers ready to sue the vendor and/or manufacturer because the points weren't rounded or the handles weren't padded or the danger wasn't clearly explained on the package or any number of other potential defects. The extra exposure with no revenue to compensate just isn't an attractive proposition.Similar issues have occurred with food products. Grocers don't discard them until they are unfit for sale. Which some homeless advocates have interpreted as demeaning or unfit for distribution to homeless (other homeless advocates disagree vehemently). Trashing the items avoids getting in the middle of the argument.Bottom line, this waste is the lubricant that allows our society to perform at the level it does. While some tweaking of the process can and should occur there are only two solutions - accept waste or dramatically reduce the material standards we have become accustomed to. Well, there is a third, dramatically reducing world population, but there is no way for that to happen in a comfortable, equable way.

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 03:02:53 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on July 05, 2021, 02:54:19 pmYeah, people are being made too comfortable on the expense of environment.Like little kids, people want useless stuff and they want it now.Some product categories simply exist to serve no meaningful purpose at all like make up.What's funny is, make up products always seem to show up in the list of chemicals harming the body and environment (since they are full of stuff like "forever chemicals, hormones and what not").There's also still no end to endless usage of single use plastic packaging. If someone could find a way to use those for something profitable, he might become richer than Apple.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 04:00:45 pm
content: Quote from: Raj on July 05, 2021, 03:02:53 pmNumbers 2 and 10 (right now) on thelist of richest people in the worldhave made a fortune (in part) after finding a way to monetize single use packaging and makeup (Sephora among others, and L'Oreal, respectively)

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 04:56:40 pm
content: I sell quite a bit on ebay.So I tried Amazon too.I found my items were coming way down in listings despite being cheapest.I also found even when you got to my items there was no buy button !Amazon said you have earn a buy button by selling lots.How do you sell lots if people cant buy the item ?So I cant sell on Amazon, then I dont buy either.

author: Raj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 05:05:30 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on July 05, 2021, 04:00:45 pmIf people buy em while ignoring the negatives it, there's a demand for it,hence it will sell.Quote from: nigelwright7557 on July 05, 2021, 04:56:40 pmI'm guessing that those were electronics...Yeah the Chinese people have ways to mess with the algorithm. (I don't remember the name of the documentary buy it was about a guy selling amber colored anti glare glasses and complaining about fake reviewers)

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 05:18:19 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on July 05, 2021, 02:54:19 pmNote that these are not quite the same things! As I recall, TP producers never ran out, and shipments from warehouses were always prompt, it was just local (daily) stocking running out (but, I don't know the actual numbers of failure-to-deliver, if any). Reflecting this, the price hardly changed AFAIK.Petroleum prices were all over, last year, and that came with some interesting differences. It's liquid energy, a little too precious to dispose of (or, fortunately for us, illegal to?). Every barrel of spare capacity was used up (full tankers, anchored anywhere they could), and at some points prices even went negative ("please, for the love of god, TAKE my oil!"). This reflects the knock-on costs of stopping and restarting production (many production systems can't simply be throttled down, and take huge effort to cycle).(Likewise, the current semiconductor shortage, is in part the consequence of following through on the command to shut down production lines. If not entirely, then at least the orders that were cancelled prematurely (and impulsively so, it turns out). And it's taking a long time for those orders to filter through and resume.)It's actually an interesting pair of examples to contrast. In one case, production or reserves were ample and prices remained stable; in the other, production was stable but demand went down suddenly, saturating reserves, and sharply reducing the price. In an earlier time, perhaps the excess production would've indeed been dumped or flared; the Cuyahoga river didn't just catch fire once (though as I understand it, that was more due to industrial runoff/waste, but one could imagine such a direct route as this being employed, given the prices in question..).Somewhere between these extremes, is likely where common electronic products would land. (Which is what we're talking about, right?) Some are fairly trivial to build, just order more from the CM and they're there in a few weeks. Does assume everything in stock or quick to make (machined/fabricated enclosures may take a few more weeks, new moldings maybe a few more still?), YMMV. Stock could be tiered with some extra capacity at the business (or getting the CM to hold some, at whatever rate they charge) to minimize excess that Amazon carries directly. Only ramp up once you have established sales, don't drop a hundred and have to burn almost all of them because the launch failed. Establish a meaningful (efficient, responsible) RMA program, so returns aren't just shredded. Etc.The relative amounts for all of these steps, varies. Few steps might be applicable to commodity crap that's barely worth its weight in plastic; pricey stuff like laptops, Apple products especially, test equipment, etc. is surely worth returning to supplier, they just need the programs in place to handle that action (and, if they think such programs cut into their profitability (which Apple apparently does, among others), then the externalities would need to be, in effect, applied to them via appropriate laws).QuoteHow are there only two binary solutions, and not a continuum of compromise, depending on product type / market / scale / etc.?The third option seems to be, reduce the profit margin standards. Incorporate externalities into business expenses. Not that you'll get anyone to support such a thing, certainly not in the current  climate. But that's the most obvious route to me.Speaking of population, it seems human birth rates decline as standard of living, and cost of living, rise. Eliminating excess infant mortality, seems to be a particularly powerful driver.If that counts as "killing them with kindness", I suppose it does. But most moral frameworks find it's an acceptable mechanism, to reduce a population by beneficial and voluntary actions. Put another way: taking a life is immoral, but deciding not to create new life is moral.Which I think is interesting by itself, as common moral frameworks are built around the individual, or groups thereof; up to scales of whole societies perhaps (e.g. rule utilitarianism), but still within a horizon of individual lifetimes. Traditional moral systems don't seem to say much at all about behavior of the superorganism, over evolutionary, let alone geologic, time scales (1ka+). Such is still very much in the domain of raw evolutionary realism: the entity continues to exist, or it ceases to, and that's that; no cosmic power cares one way or the other. (Well, beyond the inevitable march of entropy, which stands to "benefit" from the catalytic effect of life as we know it.)Tim

author: Trader
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 06:43:35 pm
content: I while ago Dave donated some 121GW DMMs returned to Amazon because they would destroy if he does nothing. I think Amazon destroys most of these products because the Sellers won't care.I still blaming Amazon, but maybe the real culprits are the sellers that won't pay for returning and won't allow a donation or a huge discount.BTW, there are worst practices. Big companies as Xerox, bought entire lots of thousands of printers from competitors just to Destroy everything and avoid these products/Brand reach the retail market.Walmart does the same, they ask to a company give them a huge discount, if the company refuses, they buy the entire lot but never sell it to public.Microsoft forces to pre-install Windows, otherwise, that laptop won't work with windows post-installed, and who the customers will blame?My COLLEGE, after some social event, Everything goes to the garbage, I mean, All the thousands of Unused Plates, Cups, tableware, etc are discarded, for them, this is just a value already incorporated in the event cost.My City, a lot of TVs goes to garbage (real garbage, not the clean Dave's dumpster) just because that person want's a new TV. (another day I saved a 55", working).This is a society totally disposable and destructive.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 08:02:15 pm
content: Quote from: Trader on July 05, 2021, 06:43:35 pmHow does the company lose here?I'd happily keep selling to Walmart under those terms. Do you have any idea what Walmart would like to buy and then just not sell? I'm flexible.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 08:46:22 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on July 05, 2021, 08:02:15 pmI think he might have misunderstood a trick. People like Walmart will insist that a producer agree to accept all unsold units back, to be redeemed at their original cost. If a producer annoys the buyer, the buyer may buy a large quantity of something, hold them in storage for a while, then send them back to the producer as unsold. Now the producer has a huge pile of stuff, probably branded up with the buyer's name. which they can't sell. Next time around they will be more accommodating to the buyer's needs. The producer can't just walk away, as the buyer represents too large a percentage of the market.

author: Trader
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 08:51:12 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on July 05, 2021, 08:02:15 pmYou have a great product/idea and want to Release it to the Public by selling in a big marketplace with hundreds of stores.They require you 50% profit margin, and you say NO; they say OK and buy all your 6-month production (or even buy your company) (with a huge discount). They don't sell it to the public and find someone else to produce the same thing or improved, they create a brand passion. This new company now is the market leader, and nobody knows or cares about you.They are flexible too, but if your product is crap, they never will buy it from you.

author: Trader
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 08:57:53 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on July 05, 2021, 08:46:22 pmAnother good strategy. Some news about China: they buy a ship of raw material, like soybean (a real example), when the ship arrives in China, they say "I didn't like it, seems GMO, return it", the producer to avoid lost all the costs in transportation accept to give a 70% discount.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2021, 10:12:31 pm
content: Quote from: Trader on July 05, 2021, 08:57:53 pmWould Walmart or Amazon buy a buttload of goods from China, sit on it for a while, then return it? That would be interesting.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 03:29:49 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on July 05, 2021, 10:12:31 pmManufacturers in China are so eager for business from Walmart, that Walmart can play all sorts of games with them, and do.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 01:39:28 pm
content: The clear and easy solution is to outsource these operations to small local businesses. They can work with less overhead, and spend more time evaluating a returned or an overstocked item, and do appropriate actions, and get it to people in need or lower income people without online presence.Supermarkets and others have here a program called "Too good to go" where they group together food, that was going to expire in a short time, and sell it deeply discounted. You often have no idea what you might be getting, and the basket is way to big usually, but it is an effort to reduce waste.On the other hand I don't think Amazon is the worst offender here. There was this huge article that Zara H&M, and other fast fashion companies, instead of selling stock discounted, simply burns the remaining clothing. Because they want to keep it as a premium brand, and they want to charge way too much money for their clothing. Premium not by quality, by price. Status symbol. So we cannot have people getting it cheap.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 02:49:58 pm
content: And if someone gets sick or die from expired food poisoning, who wants to be held accountable?

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 03:31:25 pm
content: Expiration dates are overwhelmingly quality/taste/freshness related, rather than food-safety related.https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/food-safety-basics/food-product-dating

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 03:35:51 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on July 06, 2021, 02:49:58 pmThey are not supposed to sell you expired stuff.

author: Cerebus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 05:34:42 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on July 06, 2021, 03:31:25 pmIn the UK this is codified as "Best Before" dates for 'freshness' related things and "Use By" for food safety related things. So a packet of biscuits will get a "Best Before" date and a packet of raw meat will get a "Use By" date.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2021, 11:17:11 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on July 06, 2021, 01:39:28 pmSo they only get to rip off feather brained people that have too much money, and not poor people. I can live with that.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2021, 02:35:05 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on June 29, 2021, 08:56:14 amI have had several faulty items from Amazon on which they have refunded me or replaced the item and told me to dispose of the item or do whatever I wanted with it. On a couple of occasions I have repaired the item and continued to use it, but from amazons perspective it was cheaper to let me keep the item than pay for it to be returned. It is also not just Amazon that has the problem of returned goods due to British and EU law we have the right to return any item purchased on the internet within fourteen days without question, so particularly during the present Covid 19 situation there will be plenty of items returned which for hygiene reasons is just going to get dumped as Amazon is just not going to take risks.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2021, 03:18:41 pm
content: Quote from: PozziBros on July 13, 2021, 12:49:25 pmAnd then the people who bought it at a discount would also want product support and want to return the items and want a refund, how Amazon is supposed to handle that. No consumer laws regulating this type of sale i guess.

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2021, 02:38:47 am
content: I sell a bit on ebay so decided to try Amazon.My listings despite being cheapest came way down in the listings.Even if you found my listings there is no buy it now button next to them !So emailed Amazon to find out what is going on.1/ You have to earn a buy it now button by selling lots of items.2/ You have to earn listing position by selling lots of items.So how do I sell lots if it doesnt show up and when it does no buy button ?I guess its their business to run the way they want but I certainly wont be buying from them.

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2021, 02:50:58 am
content: Ridiculous, isn't it?The whole point was to connect buyers and sellers but instead be both wander the maze aimlessly in search of hidden cheese.As a buyer, sometimes I wonder if the algo does indeed detect what I want and obfuscates the search result deliberately.Think I'm nuts? Do a search. Now, nuke your cookies and turn on a VPN.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2021, 03:17:58 am
content: I suspect similar. Likely a frustrating or ill-defined interface drives metrics like "engagement".There are few things I've shopped for on Amazon that were at all easy to find. (I shop very little there, maybe a few times a year.)Tim

author: nigelwright7557
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2021, 06:29:45 pm
content: I recently used Amazon Web Services for a website.After 3 days fighting a error 403 I gave up and signed up for AWS support.The next 14 days were completely useless with just suggestions that were available for free in help pages !It really needed someone to take my project and run it through AWS and see why it wasnt running.AWS basicially said that my website had uploaded ok with green status so they had done their bit.I even tried using Visual Studio with AWS tool kit and that failed too.I found a suggestion that my runserver.py file should be application.py The Visual Studio template generates runserver.pySo I tried zipping up my project and eventually managed to get something running.The next problem was my website couldnt send emails.The exception was access was denied.So I looked up that problem and AWS block emails.AWS is very slow, bloated, complicated and not easy to use.I used elastic beanstalk which has 3 levels, elastic beanstalk, S3 and EC2.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2021, 11:20:02 pm
content: Amazon has just removed, as demanded by the Chinese Communist Party, Xi's book reviews and ratings. This is because if Xi's books do not get five stars, the the cult dictator will lose face. Bezos is a traitor to free speech.

author: eugene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2021, 12:24:15 am
content: First, I'll be honest and reveal that I have not read the entire thread, so sorry if this is a repost:https://youtu.be/dd7ySopIwogThe simple fact is that it's a matter of economics. Somebody that went to college for economics (not EE) decides if it's better for the bottom line to destroy the stuff or do something else with it.