alt Hacker News> The only purpose of the ads is to get you to pick an air fryer that isn’t that one (or for the best air fryer, to keep you on track to buy the one you wanted in the first place). The ads make the search worse.
"The best" is not a static product. If Amazon had no way for vendors to showcase their product, the best would be a stale product that accumulated decades of reviews. Maybe it's still the best , maybe not. But there is value to show some noise in the search long term.
Another way to look at it is through the vail of ignorance. Suppose you're a manufacturer of air fryers, but don't know where you stand in terms of how competitive or popular your product is. Would you want to live in a world in which you CAN'T bump your placement? Sure if you're the top 3 manufacturer, maybe you would prefer not to pay the tax. But if you're not, you'd much rather prefer the system in which you can.
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"The best" for many products is often static, on the level of decades. Better e-commerce websites than Amazon will curate away all the garbage and only show you the best things. At this point you can pretty much use the top 5 results from any Amazon search to rule out things NOT to buy.
>"The best" is not a static product. If Amazon had no way for vendors to showcase their product ... Would you want to live in a world in which you CAN'T bump your placement?
Agreed about it not being static, but I don't see why ads should be that answer. The easiest way to "bump" a product is just sell it for less for an introduction period, so that people sorting Low->High will see it before the current highest rated one, at least until they get high ratings, and then can increase the price. If they're going to be losing money on marketing, it would be nicer if it goes to consumers.
Amazon has turned the search ranking into a contest for who can give Jeff Bezos the most money. How is that an improvement on anything?
> Would you want to live in a world in which you CAN'T bump your placement?
Yes. I’d rather compete on quality and customer satisfaction than who can burn the most money on ads.
By making it almost necessary to buy their ads, Amazon is harming my margin.
I don’t hate all advertising, but I do hate this form, where it’s perverting search.
Isn't that what independent reviews are generally useful for? To try all the options and share feedback for someone to make their own choice.