Because they have a point.
For years I have naturally, for someone like me, resisted the siren call of Amazon. I am fairly concerned about privacy issues, and I generally take the view that retail businesses have absolutely no clue who I am and what I want so they have no advice to offer me. Between these two things it would seem to indicate I greeted Amazon's practices of customer profiling with less than enthisiasm, which would be about right (if not an understatement). I figured there was no way some Barnes And Noble on steroids that got shoved up the butt-end of a Blockbuster and wrapped in a Sears could possibly tell me anything I didn't already know. Like Amazon has any idea who Steeler was and why that might mean I'd like Alcatrazz? Pfft. AS IF! Almost everyone who will ever read those words won't have any idea what I am talking about, and that is my point; it was my life and I lived it, I don't expect you to be knowledgable about the minutia of my life any more than I will be knowledgable about yours. Do you know the name of the band Meridith Brooks was in before she went solo and had her 15 minutes with "Bitch"? Me neither, but odds are at least ONE person who reads this WILL, because they own the album and love it as an underrated masterpiece. For all I know, anyway. I do know it had Charlotte Caffey from the Go-Go's, but I digress...
I resisted. I didn't buy from Amazon when they were the early darling of the net. For one simple and basic fact; there often were better deals to be had for crafy and careful shoppers on the net. Then, Amazon began to become more competitive than even little guys working out of their garage with razon-thin margins, because Amazon had volume on thier side. They got great shipping rates, and since people are just STUPID crazy for cheap shipping it got them even more customers and even more money. When you hit $50-100 mil you can start throwing your weight around and doing some cool things for yourself, but Amazon blew past numbers like 100 mil loooooong ago. They command fiscal pull that can only be compared to the likes of Walmart. They can have any product line, any type of product, any color or size they want, at a million units a month, for just about the cheapest manufacturing price imaginable. It quickly got to the point if you wanted a book you would be an idiot NOT to check Amazon. So, I admit, I finally gave in here and there, giving Amazon as little info as I could since I wasn't fond of thier "profiling", and picking up the odd occassional widget that I could not easily find anywhere else. They seriously pissed me off with the whole fucking one-click patent bullshit, so I tried to shun them even more. I don't think it worked long. It is like the people who say they hate Walmart, but refuse to pay more or drive farther. I also think when asswipes like Apple licensed one-click "technology" instead of fighting it in court they did a tremendous disservice to humanity, but I digress again. I would think at some point in time, when it became clear that Amazon's patent had not gutted Internet sales systems, I probably forgot to care and I started buying more stuff off them and their various vendors. Eventually I began to appreciate the slightly increased level of transaction assurance they brought when they allow vendors to sell used merchandise; if I buy a used DVD from Joe Blow at the swap meet and the disc is damaged and unplayable I have to take the time to come back next week with a baseball bat that has rusty nails driven through the bin'nis end and fuck a bitch's knees up... cuz I'm hard like dat. But if I buy it off an Amazon vendor I can complain to them, I get my money back without a doubt, and punk bitches don't have to be made to choke it down.
Well, it is way beyond good prices and a decent relational database (assuming someone correctly entered the data that links Steeler and Alcatrazz).
Amazon 0wnz u.
Just tell them what they want to know, whenever they want to know it, and make sure you buy as much stuff through them as possible.
Now, some of you who know me might be thinking either "who the fuck is this pretending to be Don" or you are thinking "I wonder how much my boy got paid". Oddly, both would be wrong, though I am absolutely open to shilling for Amazon anytime they want to cut me a check. Tell me what blog to post on, what you want me to say, and whether or not I will be posing as a friendly and excited 13-year-old tween girl with a love for Hello Kitty merchandise or a sophisticated 56-year-old affluent early retiree with a penchant for state-of-the-art home entertainment components. But that offer hasn't come so far, so why the hell would I say something like this?
It works.
I did not even notice Amazon had pwnd me until I was messing around with creating wish lists for public distribution. Specifically, I have long noticed the web sites that encourage their users to shower them with free gifts, and I saw no reason I shouldn't do the same. Since Amazon wish lists can be accessed publically it makes a really handy way of letting people get a gift for you that matches their particular criteria of price, function, style, whatever. As I continued to add items Amazon continued to refine its recommendations and offer new items. After a while I noticed some of the suggestions were pretty damn good. I even noticed at one point it suggested a pair of wireless headphones, which I thought was odd since I had not looked at any in years. These days there is a tiny bit of text below Amazon's recommendation that explains WHY it is being recommended, and it said it was based on my purchase of a Sennheiser wireless headset. that is true, I did buy one for research purposes once (I made them work "backwards" as a portable iPod transmitter with fixed receiver that connected to your stereo)... but that was in 2002. WOW! Amazon has been tracking me FAR longer than I thought.
There was a time this revelation would have upset me a lot, and I would have tried everything in my power to delete any information I could from Amazon. I'm older, and over it. In a world where the terrorists HAVE already won, because we voted them in to office (or they stole the votes), and you have Orwellian shit like airport security checkpoints and Homeland Security, I figure it is way too late for me to pretend I get to live off the grid. Fuck, I wouldn't much WANT to. I would like Bush to crawl out of my colon, but that's me. Maybe we'll get a really bleeding heart hippy for a Democrat president, to cosmically offset the last 8 years. Anyhoo, I know that anyone who wants info on me can find it if they look really hard... and those damn Amazon recommendations are awfully good.
I shouldn't be surprised. By virtue of the work I do and the life I lead I know lots of highly specialized info that would escape others. I learn about new way of doing old things, old ways of doing new things, and things we haven't got names for yet. For instance, do you know how much a CR2032 battery goes for on average at a drug store? About $3 each, sometimes $3 for a two-pack on sale. You know how much ANYONE can buy them for ANY time out of Digikey? About 30 CENTS. Do the math. I buy all my batteries from Digikey. :) The point is, I only know that because it is my job to know it. By the same token, there are vast teams of computers and people at Amazon, trying to intuit what I want based on an order history and a click-count, and THEY are probably better at showing me the things that might interest me, out of their all but unlimited product offerings, than anyone. Are you seriously more qualified than they are to find new merchandise? Not just a new release DVD of the latest Hollywood blockbuster... how about a new release audio CD for some obscure one-hit wonder or avant garde master musician who never sold enough to merit a reissue to CD back in the days when that was a lot more expensive and profit less certain. Hell, they didn't re-release Vandenburg's album until 2002, no doubt because there were only about 12 of us waiting for it. JK, love ya Adrian. Send me a pick ;)
My assertion that no one else knows me as well as I know myself is flawed. My memory is shot, while Amazon has deep databases they mine like demented digital DeBeers. I didn't know that a gigabyte of miniSD was so cheap, but Amazon suspected I might want to know, and they were right. While it is true that conventional businesses lack the ability to determine what I want, due to a lack of infomation about me, that is not true of a few electronic merchants I frequent such as Amazon. I have bought enough stuff for them to have a better familiarity with my purchasing interests and habits than my wife! Of course I will get her up to speed as soon as I give her the link to my public wish lists and she can finally get me something we are both sure I want. :)
Feel free to buy me whatever I want. ;)
