Amazon BIGLY FUCKED UP

I don't often post reviews to Amazon, but occasionally, when a new book is so new there's been little good or bad, or if it's bad and way overhyped, even if there's been massive reviews, I will.

A week ago Sunday, I was going to do just that: post a copy of my Goodreads review of Susan Cain's "Bittersweet." Well, I first went to my Amazon personal profile page.

And was stunned, shocked, then ... pissed off that there was ONLY ONE review there, likely my first, I presume, from back in 2004. Given that I've got 900-plus reviews on Goodreads, and didn't transfer every Amazon review when I joined Goodreads, and had some non-books reviews on Yellow Satan as well, I had probably 1,500 reviews trashed.

So, first I hit Twitter. Amazon, suckingly, has no open DMs there, though I eventually got a response. Like other capitalist corporate whores, it doesn't have a contact email form, so you work through a chatbot before you get to a real person, eventually. Real person first thought I was talking about orders, not reviews. They eventually understood, and said the issue would be forwarded up the food chain, to likely be addressed in 72 hours.

A "Nick" then answered on Twitter. Suggested I had violated community guidelines, when he tossed me this link. I first told him that was a lie, because I'd never engaged in promotion or solicitation, never posted anything sexual, etc.

I then realized I had gotten an email from Amazon the Thursday before, making similar claims. I knew it was actually from Amazon, not phishing, but didn't think it was "real." I fished it out of my deleted items recovery folder and:

You have repeatedly posted content that violates our Community Guidelines (available at http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines) or Conditions of Use ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=508088). An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we've removed your ability to participate in Community features.

That's an even bigger lie.

First, I've never participated in any community discussions to be warned about. Second, I've never been warned about anything before, period. Third, I've never engaged in intellectual property theft.

And, third, unlike either the chat bot or Twitter, got ZERO immediate response.

So, I updated my public profile. It read, as of Sunday, Sept. 4:

Where's the 1,500 or more reviews that fucking Amazon deleted as of Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022? That fucking Amazon deleted without warning, and for which I had never done anything to warrant deletion per its community guidelines? 

Politically lefitist (for America) as in specifically a contradistinction to "liberal," iconoclastic, an environmentalist, a freethinker. 

I march to the beat of my own drummer, and so do my reviews. 

Update: Since we can't comment on reviews here anymore, and can't downvote unhelpful ones, I report wingnuts who have pseudoscience based reviews on books that cover things like COVID and climate change. Deal with it.

Boom!?

Well, 30 seconds later, "boom" back. Even though an actual human hadn't responded via email to my response earlier a week ago Sunday, when this went down, a bot immediately didn't like the word "fucking." So, I changed it to "flock" and otherwise modified the first graf a bit.

I had, a few months ago, added that last paragraph. Maybe Amazon hated on me for that. If so? Fuck it. If that's "abuse," then they, like places like Quora in the past, are allowing other abuse to run rampant and it's time to leave anyway. That's what you get when humans, not algorithms, even before removing comments, decide to remove thumbs-down/unlike buttons. Thank doorknobs Reddit still allows downvotes.

Fucktards at Amazon then got worse.

Bot messaged me Monday, Labor Day mind you, that my profile still didn't meet standards.

AND THEY HAD DELETED ALL THE BIO INFO!

So, this:

So now Amazon has deleted all my changes? Good thing I copied them all yesterday, Amazon, because I've already started blogging about your flock-ups.

Fuck you even more.

But, why leave one review instead of deleting all? Is this a Mafia-like Amazon version of a horsehead on a pillow? So I suspect.

I am of course deleting my account entirely. Not letting them do that type of bullshit.

I don't need Amazon for any personal orders I can think of. Last two cameras, and last several lenses, have come from either KEH or eBay. Filters I can get elsewhere as needed. Office products, the modest amount I have ordered there for my company? Will go elsewhere the next time I need printer toner. 

I also didn't like Amazon storing my credit card online. And, it seems to have done that even after I toggled that off. Given that my Red and Yellow Satan national bank (think about it) contacted me not too long ago about a credit card issue, that's another reason not to like Yellow Satan. (Not that I totally like Red and Yellow Satan either.)

Jeff Bezos is Mao

As in Mao Zedong, circa Cultural Revolution era.

That's my ultimate takeaway from this long NYT piece about Amazon's corporate culture in action.

The relentless self-criticism, the employees spying on each other, management fueling both of those?

That was written three years ago.

Now, Bezos agreeing to people getting at least $15 an hour, even temp/contract employees? It may make that culture even worse. We'll see how many people stay that long.

One thing I simply do not get is why Bezos welcomes the turnover rate this causes. (He and other top brass denied for the record Amazon has unusual employee attrition, even in the face of stats showing it does, and Bezos is VERY statistics oriented.) Business management surveys, etc., consistently show that employee training is a high cost that should be controlled.

On the other hand, the Amazon corporate style, where the massive Maoism seems to be a main part of training, may be cheaper than elsewhere. And, perhaps part of it is an expectation of self-training, otherwise.

And, even where Bezos seems to be doing good in the terms of being a good corporate citizen, he isn't. Yes, he collects online sales taxes for states. But only for products he directly sells. His third-party vendors (like you or I selling a used book there)? Nope, he doesn't. And, David Dayen says this is more than half his business. (Three states require Amazon collect these taxes for its third-party vendors.) Per that link, here's the Amazon letter to shareholders that notes that. Oh, and that percentage was on the rise up to that point. Expect Amazon to try to knock the likes of eBay out of business at some point.

More here in a great piece from the Verge on how the Amazon third-party sellers market is a Wild West, and why Amazon encourages it.

Related to that, as the Verge now points out, is that Amazon has generally been exempted from liability for defective product sales by third parties in its Marketplace, but that this is slowly starting to change.

At the same time, Bezos keeps the third-party vendors in line by "juicing" its own products, allegedly. And, speaking of juicing? The claims of Amazon Prime shipment times are more and more flat-out lies.

Also, despite complaints from former Amazon buyers like me, Bezos doesn't care about Chinese, Indian or Nigerian scammers muscling into its third-party vendor world. If it makes a sale and gets its cut off the purchase price, fine. If fraud actually happens, it's up to you to prove it, or to fight with the vendor if you don't think a scammy sale can be proven fraudulent. (Been there, done that, and Amazon won't let you rate an individual sale based on vendor/sale problems, just the product.) If this forces all third-party vendors to cut prices, and thus drive yet more business to Amazon, great!

As for paying contractors more? If you're one of its delivery drivers, living in Uber-like employment, you've still got your own insurance overhead, and just like with driving for Uber, Geico or State Farm will leave your ass high and dry if you have a wreck as a corporate employee and get sued. (Amazon and Uber will also leave you high and dry. You're on the hook for health care, of course. And, arguably, Amazon is breaking the law by counting employees as independent contractors.

So (Update, July 28, 2019) Kevin Mims at Quillette? You can decry tourist journalism on reporting on Amazon drivers all you want, from your anecdotes. You're not a driver, even as you reference a fellow employee taking Uber to work. You are right that, for all we know, Starbucks may be worse. You do admit that Amazon itself used to be worse.

Otherwise? Your freelance writing, if you depend on it for more income than Amazon, may be worse, too. Mental health stresses.

Finally, if Bernie Sanders thinks he has a "win" with Bezos agreeing to $15 an hour, I wouldn't count those chickens yet. Indeed, the pay hike is already confirmed to be at the expense of other Amazon employees with company service time.

AND, updating Oct. 13, there IS a huge fucking catch. Amazon contract delivery drivers, who have already been subject to wage theft by Amazon, DO NOT QUALIFY. Read that full link for the full rip-off info and more.

There's a whole laundry list of other complaints against Amazon, anyway, like its providing web services to the CIA, and, related to that, the long tentacles in general of Amazon Web Services. Oh, and a reminder that Chairman Mao's company helps ICE just like it helps the CIA.

==

And, somehow, National Enquirer got a hold of some selfie pics of Jeff's "Little Mao," to which he responds on Medium.

#Ebook stagnation — my thoughts on why

Note that in the US, the reading rate has plateaued even more than the buy rate.

Both in Australia and the UK, and here in the US, ebook sales have stagnated in the past year or two.

Is this a temporary glitch, and will ebook touters from a few years back eventually be proven right, or — at least in the current sales structure of ebooks — is it something permanent?

Before answering those questions, let's look at why the stagnation has happened.

I have several thoughts.

1. Early adopters have all done their early adopting, and middle adopters haven't jumped in yet; late adopters certainly haven't.

2. Ebook buyers from Amazon have pulled back from buying ebooks, with the lapse of "teaser" prices now having used books, after just 2 years, cheaper than ebook copies of the same, and often even new ebooks not that much cheaper than print.

3. Ebook buyers — or even more would-be ebook buyers — don't like their book choices being held hostage to wholesaling disputes like the Amazon-Hachette one.

4. Ebook readers — and even more, potential ebook readers — have grown wary of the fact that, at least in the US, one does not own ebooks. Rather, one owns the right to read an ebook stored by Amazon or whomever in a digital cloud, a right that can be, and has been, revoked.

5. Print readers are still holding out for more ease with the digital equivalent of underlining and otherwise marking up a book. (But, see No. 5.) Ditto for other issues related to this.

6. Ebook readers, in nonfiction, have gotten tired of problems with footnoting, indexes, etc.

If No. 1 is the primary issue, then, the plateau is only temporary. That's somewhat true if No. 6 is the primary issue, though that still has a trust issue involved.

If some combination of Nos. 2-5 is the problem, though, then the plateau is going to be around a while.

That's because all of the problems there, and subproblems within each point, are traceable in part to quasi-monopolistic issues in general, and business practices of Amazon in particular. And, even No. 6 in part relates to that — it's an issue of buyers tired of vendors in general being cheap with ebook production. (That said, that is probably more then publishing houses than Amazon, but, if Amazon really cared about the issue, it would lean on publishers to do better on their end. In nonfiction, if a book has at least 10 Amazon reviews, I generally offer 50-50 odds that one of the reviews is a complaint about ebook formatting issues.)

To me, No. 2 probably is not that big, though it's not negligible.

I think Nos. 3 and 4 are the biggies. Especially to people who don't have fondness for Bezos otherwise, on things like Amazon's sweatshop "fulfillment warehouses," Bezos looks like a potential John D. Rockefeller of digital publishing. Or worse.

For me, these two issues, plus the degree that No. 5 relates to No. 4, make me wary indeed of, if not ebooks in general, then the Amazon and Kindle world in specific.

Given that Bezos is showing ever more signs of turning the Washington Post into the nation's libertarian newspaper in five years (what — the Wall Street Journal isn't enough? let alone the Phil Anschutz "empire"?) I don't think Nos. 3 and 4 are changing any time soon.

I don't know if Amazon is as much a problem Down Under or in the UK. Maybe it is, and given that that US survey is from 2013, it just took Amazon wariness — and Amazon hamhandedness or worse that provoked it —an additional year to spread beyond the US.

Jeff Bezos of #Amazon + #WaPost = Dark Side of the Internet

I've run a semi-regular series of blog post about "the dark side of the Internet."

It features on the drive for a few big companies, not just financially big in general, but big in how much online data they seek to gather about customers, for advertising, marketing and related purposes, and how manipulative they may be.

My focus has generally been on three or four companies in this aera, including Facebook, Google and ...

Amazon. (Click here, or the tag below, for all posts on this theme.)

So, that's why the announcement that Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, was buying the Washington Post raised my eyebrows.

Yeah, yeah, the Post is saying it's Bezos personally, not Amazon, but ...

Do you really believe there will be zero "leakage" of consumer/reader data between the two? If you do, I have a profitable newspaper in DC to sell you.

Oops, NONE of them are, at least not any of the three dailies.

Second, even if leakage is minimal, Bezos will be bringing new ideas. Allan Mutter presents a few of these right away; he's on the same page as me about some "bundling."

Anyway, the buy by Bezos alone means he doesn't have to report to Amazon's board, and it lets him take the company private. He can experiment away with its editorial and its business sides as he wants.

With that in mind, a couple of questions right off the bat.

How will this affect the Post's tentative, foot-dragging work to finally enter the world of paywalls?

Related to that, will any Amazon ads be "bundled" as part of online subscription offers? What about, per Mutter, any Amazon products?

Now, some more off the wall speculation and questions:

Update, and top question — Jay Rosen reminds me that Amazon booted Wikileaks off its servers when Team Obama and Dear Leader started putting heat on the organization and Julian Assange. Given how pliant mainstream media in general, and the Washington Post in particular (especially its editorial page) has been on this issue at times, this is not good.

Now, on to other thoughts.

Will Amazon and the Post partner to produce an online "TV" news channel, kind of like the San Diego Union Tribune is doing? (Don't tell me the paper's been renamed.)

Will Bezos pull an "Advance" and end daily home delivery?

Will he reshape the digital version to focus on mobile first?

Will he, like many newspapers have gone to Facebook-moderated comment systems on stories, try to integrate Amazon's commenting system into Post stories online?

What will this possibly do to the Post's book reviews?

I'll add more thoughts as they come to me.


====

 I'm also rounding up web reaction.

Henry Blodgett talks about synchronicities and symmetries that Bezos brings. Plus side? Readership on mobile devices like the Kindle Fire is zooming. Downside? Ebook readership is flat.

Megan McArdle predicts not even a Bezos can save a print version of the Post, and she's probably right. (And, note to Post CEO Don Graham: DeNial is not a river in Egypt, if you think you could have survived for years to come under current ownership. You've been leaking money like a sieve, and been belated in addressing how to fix that. You're also a liar; your own paper says you were shopping it, not that Bezos approached you unsolicited.)

And, don't forget that Bezos is no lead-pipe cinch genius; buying the now-shuttered Pets.com and trying to compete with eBay show that.

Gregory Ferenstein notes that, in fact, Bezos said that himself, predicting print papers would be totally dead in 20 years. Bring on the KindlePost!

John F. Harris of Tiger Beat on the Potomac  notes that the Post has winged it for years on a business model, stranded between "metro newspaper" and "national interest newspaper." Bezos indicated he may continue the winging it for a while. Harris adds that the Graham family may have sold, in part, because they're tired of trying to figure out an online business model.

Emily Bell wonders how the KindlePost will actually cover Amazon news, and how Bezos will handle that. Per that, and per other info in her column, did Bezos buy a would-be lobbying agency?

She, and others, also note the question of, when the Boston Globe sold on the same day for just $70 million, did Bezos overpay? Is he paying for "brand"? Is he paying for what I just hinted — lobbying or other forms of "inside-the-Beltway" influence?

(That said, Jeff Henry got the Times to keep the Globe's pension obligations.)

Andrew Ross Sorkin calls newspapers billionaires' trophies. For people worried about the Koch Bros' buying the L.A. Times and/or other Tribune properties, that, and the recent pricings of the Post and Globe, should be worrisome.

====

These last couple of commenters also bring another issue to mind.

Just what is Bezos' politics? We know it's anti-union, and not very egalitarian, per recent stories about his company's warehouses.

And, that leads us to a couple of politics-based commenters.

Laura Bennett of The New Republic says he probably did want to buy a political "in," but doesn't offer many details about what specific issues might concern him, other than (possibly) Internet sales taxes. Bezos supports such a tax. Arguably, in part, his reasoning it's less of a burden for him than smaller online-focused companies.

Harris, linked above points out that Bezos has supported things like gay marriage.Bell, above, notes that he is providing cloud computing for the CIA, so, on snooping-related stuff, he's Beltway-stereotype friendly.

Add that to my observations of the obvious, and, we could say Bezos is some type of neoliberal. Exactly where he is on that spectrum may take a while to shake out. But, he'll likely be similar to Silicon Valley neolibs. He's pretty much that mindset.

In other words, he's somewhat of a libertarian, but neolib Dems will continue to claim him as one of theirs.

Of course, this should no surprise. He worked at a NYC hedge fund, and his parents were rich enough to lend him the money to start Amazon, per more info from the Post's story on the sale. At the same time, his refusal to look to short-term profits separates him from at least the Randian CEO-type libertarians.

Why you shouldn't believe Shermer's 'Believing Brain'

If you want to know why you shouldn't believe Michael Shermer's "The Believing Brain," as well as why, for parts that are any good, you should go to more original resources, read my latest Amazon reviews.

A sample:

Here's derivative and blind spots intersecting -- Shermer briefly, but briefly talks about Kahneman's and Tversky's study in behavioral economics (without also citing Ariely, among others). One will learn much more about how irrational human behavior is in matters of economics, and related psychology, by going to the source. Shermer could have had a better book with a whole chapter just on this field.

So, why didn't he? I suspect because he knows how totally behavioral economics chops into little bitty pieces the claims of his beloved Ayn Rand and the Austrian School of Economics.

If you know Michael Shermer, and know he's not all he cracks himself up to be, you're not surprised by that. If you think you know Shermer, but don't necessarily worship the ground he walks on while thinking he is nonetheless a great skeptic, there's plenty more after those first two paragraphs of my review, so click the link and get enlightened.

Reading about Willie, and Mickey ... and the Hammer

Sorry, I've not come across a Duke Snider biography.

That said, I have recently read new biographies of (from oldest to newest) Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Henry Aaron.

Overall, from oldest to newest, they descended from best to worst.

On Amazon, I gave the Mays bio five stars, the Mantle one four, and the Aaron one, "The Last Hero," three.

From: "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend"

I feel a bit of sadness about Willie, having read this book, the same sadness I had as a 9-year-old in 1973, watching him stumble when rounding second, trying to go from first to third on a single, in the 1973 World Series, and having to crawl back to second.

Whether due more to innate personality tendencies, his own reactions to segregation in his native Alabama in general, or associated with baseball, his family of origin, or a combination of this and more, it's sad that he doesn't open up even more.

And while I, being Caucasian, am in no position to judge Willie on his activism in civil rights, and agree with him that we don't all have the same temperament, Hirsch does show how Robinson and Aaron could wish so hard for more from him and be frustrated he didn't give that. ...

But, the not opening up is itself part of Mays. Hirsch also does a good job of showing how Mays, in his own quiet way, refuted or rejected various stereotypes.

From "The Last Boy" review:

Specifically, the one major new thing in this bio — Mantle's childhood sexual abuse suffering — is exactly what (Mantle hagiographers) most object to, and what I find one of the strengths of the book. That said, because Leavy chooses NOT to write a more traditional, fully chronological biography, we don't get this information until near the end of the book. Too close to the end, in my opinion; Leavy, without a chronological style, could still have introduced it near the start of Mantle's post-playing life, rather than when the book is 90 percent done. And then, she could have built on it more, more thoroughly interweaving it with his womanizing and his alcoholism.

From "The Last Hero" review, talking about Howard Bryant's authorial style:

Third, is the "Henry" style. Howard Bryant, serious baseball fans know Aaron went by "Henry" and not "Hank." To call everybody else by last name, but throughout the whole book, call Aaron "Henry," "Henry," "Henry" became annoying. It then rose to irritating, and even a bit beyond that.

Fourth, if you're going to do that, apply it similarly to other ballplayers. Calling Dick Allen "Richie"? MAJOR faux pas.

Fifth, why is he "The Last Hero"? Yes, publishers often have the final say on book titles, but I suspect this one came from Bryant. Is it because he got the home run record without roiding? Is it because he was the last player from the "semi-pioneering" age of African-American ballplayers? We're never clearly told.

Anyway, even Bryant's bio is worth a read.

Recent Amazon reviews

The Coming Population Crash is excellent. There's a solid new Willie Mays bio out. And, Ron Chernow's Washington was fantastic, though I have yet to write up a review.

See my latest reviews here.

Several new Amazon reviews are up

One of the best books I've read on the folly of believing that economic "engagement" with China will make it more democratic, "The Beijing Consensus," was very good. Read what I thought about it and other books.

Why SETI likely won't find ET

New Amazon reviews up: Paul Davis has a great new book on why SETI hasn't found "anybody" yet ... and probably won't.

New Amazon nonfiction book reviews up

Is "Water" all that it's cracked up to be by some, or is it all wet? Find out my thoughts on it and others. Are things really "Poorly Made in China"? What is "The Miracle" (if any) of modern Asia's wealth? (And, yes, I posted a review on a Rodney Stark book I haven't read. "Civilization clashers" and Christian fundamentalists can just deal with it.)

Amazon gets snippy to protect Pat Buchanan

Amazon claims it won’t run my review of Pat Buchanan’s book of mythology, “Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War,” because it gets too personal with Pat. Rather, I think, in my first and last paragraphs, it got too personal with Amazon.

Other than that, Amazon pulled the same nonsense on me in the past, claiming I concentrated too much on the personal opinions of the author. Frankly, there’s worse; several posted reviews on Amazon’s site talk about Pat’s alleged anti-Semitism, which I never touch in the review.

Rather, I think Amazon, as mentioned, is thin-skinned about itself. Judge for yourself:

Folks, when the errors start ON THE DUST JACKET, you've got a bad book. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't have a negative-star rating.

Bad from the dust jacket on is indeed the case, as Buchanan perpetuates and propagates the myth of the "punitive" treaty of Versailles. Adjusted for inflation and France's smaller population, the Prussian treaty imposed at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 was far more punitive, in terms of reparations.

And, you know what? The French paid off the whole thing. In advance. Without inflating their currency.

There's other nonsense, starting with his coverage of World War I. In the Pacific, Japan may well have declared war against Germany without any British alliance. They were smart enough not to go after British islands or American ones; that left German holdings.

As for World War II in Europe, even someone as bumbling as Hitler might have beaten the Soviet Union without Britain at his back. (The real "story" of WWII is that Hitler tried to have "guns and butter" until 1943, not putting the German economy on a total war footing until after Stalingrad.)

Then, in spite of post-Munich evidence to the contrary, Buchanan would have us believe if Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier had forced Poland's Beck to appease Hitler by giving up Danzig and a rail corridor across the Polish Corridor, Hitler would never have asked anything more from Poland. (Hitler's second meeting with Chamberlain, of course, had him saying the Sudentenland was not enough.)

Then, we have the absolute laugher of Pat claiming that Hitler's motivation on attacking the USSR was not ideology. That said, re the paragraph above, also contrary to Buchanan, Hitler would not have invaded the USSR in 1940 if the British and French had not declared war on im in 1939.

Contra page 360, where Buchanan claims there's no evidence Hitler intended to make Britain a slave state, we have a Nazi list of British intellectuals and politicians Hitler intended to round up and send to concentration camps.

But, when has Buchanan let facts get in the way of a story line?

Next, "Mr. Realpolitik" reaches deep into the right-wing dungeon to trot out the old "sellout at Yalta" schtick.

Then, we get into errors in Cold War history. Many historians would argue with Buchanan that Yugoslavia was not behind the Iron Curtain after 1954. And, Buchanan also overlooks Albania's "defection" to Beijing in 1961.

Then, there's annoyances of his writing style.

I have NEVER before heard Joseph Chamberlain called "Joe," first and foremost.

And, at oversized type and leading, this is really a 300-page book, too.

Finally, we have the irony, and hypocrisy, of Buchanan criticizing Churchill on grounds of racism.

And, any legitimate puncturing of Churchill's myth can be found in real history books rather than this rag. Amazon ought to bar the tag "history" from being used on this book.

Update:After Amazon got my slightly edited review posted, at least one of St. Patrick of Bigotry’s anti-Semitic worshipers has come out of the woodwork.

Here’s an e-mail I got from “Mister GAF”:

Hi Jew Snyder,

Please remove any mention of Socrates or Socratic school of thought.

The poor man must be rolling over in his grave.

It’s obvious that you are a fucking idiot with no credentials.

I won’t bother e-mailing this bigot back, but don’t let me stop YOU from doing so.

Send “Mister GAF” some e-love if you want to.

In the top 1,500!

I am, that is. Among Amazon book reviewers. So, if you want to see what I like and dislike, beyond a few reviews I’ve recently posted on the blog, click the link!

In the top 2,000 at Amazon

Enough book reading, and classical music listening, and reviews of this, and my Amazon reviewer ranking continues to rise, in spite of me not being afraid to two-star or even occasionally one-star some items, and comment in detail about why.