micky wrote:
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on 14 Mar 2021 11:27:44 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, Amazon is completely reputable. I buy many
things from them--probably somewhere around 100 a year--and I've never
had a problem, except once when a product I expected to receive never
arrived. Amazon not only refunded what I had paid, but also gave me a
credit ($10, If I remember correctly).

You don't buy things *from* them (at least not in cases like this),
but *through* them. The only thing you get is *financial* 'security',
*if* you spot in time that the advertized item is indeed a lemon.

But the point - which you've snipped - is, (very) weird merchant,
which peddles a mislabeled/misadvertized, no-name device which you're
supposed to trust your data to.

FWIW, we (NL) also have Amazon-like companies (they pre-date Amazon in
Europe) and Amazon is ramping up here. I only use (the merchants which

So you might know...

How much do you think Amazon copied, or could have copied, from the
European Amazon-like companies?

And how much was innovation by Amazon?

For example:
A picture of the item.
Multiple pictures, often from all angles, of the item,
Detailed description, far more than what Walmart usually has, just the
name of the item and 7 or 8 words that describe it.
Ratings by buyers that they post even when they are negative.
Ratings by others also.
Verified buyers labeled (I think this started later, or maybe I just
noticed it later.)
Questions by prospective buyers with posted answers by the vendor?
And answers by other customers?

Ofcourse I can't prove it and neither can anybody disprove it, but
none of these are "innovation by Amazon".

Umpteen - probably many thousands - webshops have most if not all of
these features.

Not that any of these are likely to be patentable, but if they were
and if they were Amazon's IP, I'm sure Amazon would sue everybody's
pants off. Since they don't (sue), they apparently are *not* innovation
by Amazon".

I rest my case, your honour!

sell through) such companies if there's no reasonable alternative and
the lemon-risk is not important. (And I think a lot would have to change
before I would consider buying through or from Amazon.)