Farish's Freehold: Amazon is not your friend

David Gaughran says the Kindle store is broken, and provides a plethora of evidence.

https://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/scammers-break-the-kindle-store/

But is it broken? I say no. I think he's confusing his needs with Amazon’s needs.

To Amazon this is a great thing, even if it's via click farms

Amazon is in the business of moving product as quickly and efficiently as possible at a profit. Let me say that again;

Amazon is in the business of moving product as quickly and efficiently as possible at a profit.

There are only so many hours in a day, so manufacturers and content creators who move product will be rewarded and their complaints taken seriously, those who do not will be ignored. The other thing Amazon wants is people browsing their pages, and making impulse buys.

If the number one seller in the category Sci-Fi/ Space Opera is “Captured by The Busty Dominatrix Aliens of Planet X,” Amazon does not care. Amazon is there to sell books and other things, not provide tips on what is or is not quality literature.

Nor do they care where the reviews came from, so long as there are lots of them, as that will encourage more people to pick up a copy, or to check out a different book.

Same with Kindle Unlimited, there is only so much money to go around, the amount set by Amazon, who that money goes to is a secondary concern to moving product for Amazon.

Of course there are limits. Amazon will avoid headaches (lawsuits, bad PR campaigns, and so on), which is why they will occasionally clean up posted reviews, sometimes wiping out the authentic with the fake. However, to spend a lot of time focusing on making sure that only ‘good’ books written by honest people, with authentic reviews, are the ones sold, reduces the time Amazon can spend on moving product.

Moving product as quickly and efficiently as possible at a profit is Amazon’s raison d'etre.

Forget that at your own peril.

Ears burning?

Demons whispering madness?

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