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petilonyesterday at 10:57 PM9 repliesview on HN

> AI is a legit threat to Amazon because headless Amazon makes it more difficult for Amazon to sell ads

No, the threat is bigger than that. If AI automatically places orders on Amazon's site, tomorrow it could place the order on another company's site, and the user won't know the difference.

You have to own the consumer experience. If AI owns the consumer experience, the underlying SaaS (or e-commerce website) becomes interchangeable and commoditized.


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gz5yesterday at 11:24 PM

>If AI automatically places orders on Amazon's site, tomorrow it could place the order on another company's site, and the user won't know the difference.

Agree that is a big-time longer-term threat but "user won't know the difference" means the user gets the order with parity in delivery time, product quality, returns experience, etc...that won't be replicated overnight, at least not at scale (interesting to think what products could be done first...similar to Amazon starting with books).

Meanwhile ads made Amazon $19.8 billion last quarter alone, even while detracting from our user experience. Can't rip that business away overnight either, but it is less of a lift imo.

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Buttons840today at 1:51 AM

What about the end game where my own computer running my own code controls the experience? There's a 10 trillion dollar incentive to never allow that reality.

fc417fc802yesterday at 11:23 PM

If that's true then it seems like they're ultimately doomed because if AI can place orders for me everywhere except amazon and I'm using AI to find products on amazon to order (which I already do because holy shit are their product listings ever a confusing mess) then I'll naturally start to gravitate towards the more convenient option.

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gmerctoday at 2:49 AM

It was legal when amazon did it to everyone else

matheusmoreiratoday at 1:42 AM

> You have to own the consumer experience.

No, we have to own it.

I'm so tired of these abusive control freak corporations. I'm actually starting to look forward to these "unaligned" AIs which are just going to ignore all of this nonsense whether they like it or not.

iAMkenoughtoday at 1:24 AM

> You have to own the consumer experience. If AI owns the consumer experience, the underlying product becomes interchangeable and commoditized.

Ironically, this is what Amazon did to local business owners. Now that the tables are turned (and they have billions to spend on lawyers), they see the threat.

lupiretoday at 1:17 AM

Disintermediation.

It's Amazon's whole business model.

https://prosperousamerica.org/amazons-heavy-recruitment-of-c...

ihswyesterday at 11:32 PM

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