From Newsgroup: comp.misc

A lot of companies are making a comfortable living by selling goods or
services online: Amazon, DoorDash, Uber etc. A key part of the
business model is that the visitors to their site are actual humans,
who can be shown ads, or otherwise persuaded to upsell to some
enticing extra product (“Would you like chips with that?”) and thereby disgorge a little bit of extra revenue.

This is part of what’s called “building a relationship with the customer”. Which is a nice way of saying “owning the customer”.

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI
agent “get me a ride to the airport”, the agent goes away to the Uber
and Lyft sites (or whatever else turns up), and picks the cheapest
option at that moment. The human doesn’t know which company is
providing the ride that turns up on their doorstep, and they won’t
care. The providers of these products have become mere commodity
suppliers.

This thought does scare some of these online retailers. And now
Amazon, just about the biggest such e-tailer out there, is suing
Perplexity, a provider of just such an AI agent service. Amazon says
that this is about maintaining a “positive customer experience”; but
surely the form of the “customer experience” is something for the
customer to choose.

Amazon also says that access by AI bots is against the terms of
service for its site, and that is clearly the core of its legal claim.
But will such a claim hold up in court? How far can companies go in
dictating exactly what form users’ accesses to their site can take?

<https://www.theverge.com/podcast/823909/the-doordash-problem-ai-agents-web-amazon-perplexity-lawsuit>
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 21:00:12 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

A lot of companies are making a comfortable living by selling goods or services online: Amazon, DoorDash, Uber etc. A key part of the

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI

So basically, tech innovation for me, but not you. Kind of bullshit,
if you ask me.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 19:57:21 -0700,
Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 21:00:12 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

A lot of companies are making a comfortable living by selling goods or
services online: Amazon, DoorDash, Uber etc. A key part of the

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI

So basically, tech innovation for me, but not you. Kind of bullshit,
if you ask me.

I read it as "PROFIT for me, but not for thee", though the end result is the same BS.

--
Sent from my Personal DECstation 5000/25
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI
agent “get me a ride to the airport”, the agent goes away to the Uber
and Lyft sites (or whatever else turns up), and picks the cheapest
option at that moment. The human doesn’t know which company is
providing the ride that turns up on their doorstep, and they won’t
care. The providers of these products have become mere commodity
suppliers.

I fail to see how that is different from having a human assistant or
concierge handle things for you: the assistant is also not gonna
randomly impulse buy stuff on your behalf, nor are they gonna be swayed
by ads related to a product they're not buying for themselves.

Why are they not also suing basically every hotel on this planet? Hell,
you can access pretty cheaply the basic services that used to be
reserved to those who could afford to hire a dedicated personal
assistant! After all, we're talking booking rides and finding stuff on
Amazon, things that even without AI can be provided en-masse.

This seems to me like a desperate attempt to mandate outdated business
models stay relevant by law, as the previous business model relied on
certain services staying unavailable to most of the population, which
isn't what happened as those services were both automated and the
non-automated versions also just straight-up became cheaper.
--
Zekromaster
gemini://zekromaster.net
«I have based my affair on nothing»
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 20:43:50 +0100, Zekromaster wrote:

I fail to see how that is different from having a human assistant or concierge handle things for you ...

Not many people can afford such.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI
agent "get me a ride to the airport", the agent goes away to the Uber
and Lyft sites (or whatever else turns up), and picks the cheapest
option at that moment.

What on Earth makes you think the AI bot would do something as
crazy as that? These chatbots are an inscrutable black box that
suggestions come from, and the companies running them need to make
massive amounts of money out of them while offering them cheap/free
to use. The inevitable outcome is that companies will pay to have
their services used by these chatbots. Amazon surely already do it
with their Alexa gizmos which presumably order generic items from
the supplier they like best (pays them most), or from themselves
directly for many things.

Perplexity apparantly tried to muscle in on Amazon's AI shopping
game and they're defending that. That's interesting if you own
shares in Amazon, but otherwise who cares? The real problem is that
people who rely on AI will never even see alternatives, not just
for products and services but for points of view on anything.

For example if you do a web search for a specific hotel it's often
very hard to pick the hotel's own website out of all the booking and
comparson results which come way higher in the search results. I've
even falsely assumed a hotel didn't have their own website before.
But it's usually cheaper to book rooms directly. If you ask an AI
to book a room at a hotel I think it's very unlikely that they'll
bypass the booking sites and really get the best deal. Instead
they'll book with whichever booking site has paid them most, and
maybe then the hotel will pay the booking site extra to have
themselves chosen by AI when people just ask to book a room
somewhere in that location. Instead of buying unreliable ads,
now they're paying for the certainty of manipulating a machine
intelligence which dopey internet users have conveniently
outsourced their thinking to, and the AI companies only have to
tweak a setting in return.

Further along, now locations like towns have an interest in getting
themselves recommended as holiday spots by AI. AI might talk about
more notable people from a town that pays for more mentions on
their service, so more people want to go visit historic locations
there. Before you know it people en-mass are absorbing obscure
niches of history and politics by default just because some town
or tourism company paid to boost visitor numbers, and unlike with
old techniques like paid magazine/newspaper articles, now people
really believe they're exploring _the_ true answer to their own
personal questions.

Where Amazon is getting upset is that they'd like to be the ones
running the AI and therefore at the end of the food chain for that
money. Not just another middle-man for retailers, competing equally
with the others for their AI 'thoughtshare'. While we watch these
AI companies squabble over who gets to be king, we've missed the
fact that we're becoming part of their kingdom.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Zekromaster <ng-contact@mydomain.tld.invalid> wrote:

I fail to see how that is different from having a human assistant or >concierge handle things for you: the assistant is also not gonna
randomly impulse buy stuff on your behalf, nor are they gonna be swayed
by ads related to a product they're not buying for themselves.

If many people actually did delegate purchases to an assistant, no
doubt they would sue for that as well, on the same grounds that the
person purchasing the item is not the person actually making the purchase.

This seems to me like a desperate attempt to mandate outdated business
models stay relevant by law, as the previous business model relied on
certain services staying unavailable to most of the population, which
isn't what happened as those services were both automated and the >non-automated versions also just straight-up became cheaper.

Yes, and why does this surprise anyone? When business models change,
when markets change, companies sue to stop that change because it
seems easier to them than to find a new way to do business.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:29:53 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:

If many people actually did delegate purchases to an assistant, no doubt
they would sue for that as well, on the same grounds that the person purchasing the item is not the person actually making the purchase.

A site cannot simply make up whatever terms and conditions it likes, and
then try to say you’re breaking the law if you disobey them.

Well, hopefully it cannot.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 17:29:53 -0500 (EST), Scott Dorsey wrote:

If many people actually did delegate purchases to an assistant, no doubt
they would sue for that as well, on the same grounds that the person
purchasing the item is not the person actually making the purchase.

A site cannot simply make up whatever terms and conditions it likes, and >then try to say you're breaking the law if you disobey them.

No? It has worked perfectly well for Amazon, Ebay, and mostly for Paypal. --scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 22/11/2025 22:03, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

But what if the visitors to your site are AI bots, looking for deals
on behalf of a human that ends up one step removed from contact with
you? Then all those ads and extra persuasive messages fall on the
worst kind of deaf ears -- no ears at all. The human says to the AI
agent "get me a ride to the airport", the agent goes away to the Uber
and Lyft sites (or whatever else turns up), and picks the cheapest
option at that moment.

What on Earth makes you think the AI bot would do something as
crazy as that? These chatbots are an inscrutable black box that
suggestions come from, and the companies running them need to make
massive amounts of money out of them while offering them cheap/free
to use. The inevitable outcome is that companies will pay to have
their services used by these chatbots. Amazon surely already do it
with their Alexa gizmos which presumably order generic items from
the supplier they like best (pays them most), or from themselves
directly for many things.

Perplexity apparantly tried to muscle in on Amazon's AI shopping
game and they're defending that. That's interesting if you own
shares in Amazon, but otherwise who cares? The real problem is that
people who rely on AI will never even see alternatives, not just
for products and services but for points of view on anything.

For example if you do a web search for a specific hotel it's often
very hard to pick the hotel's own website out of all the booking and comparson results which come way higher in the search results. I've
even falsely assumed a hotel didn't have their own website before.
But it's usually cheaper to book rooms directly. If you ask an AI
to book a room at a hotel I think it's very unlikely that they'll
bypass the booking sites and really get the best deal. Instead
they'll book with whichever booking site has paid them most, and
maybe then the hotel will pay the booking site extra to have
themselves chosen by AI when people just ask to book a room
somewhere in that location. Instead of buying unreliable ads,
now they're paying for the certainty of manipulating a machine
intelligence which dopey internet users have conveniently
outsourced their thinking to, and the AI companies only have to
tweak a setting in return.

The last time I booked a (UK) hotel, by booking direct we got free
parking unlike those who booked through a comparison site.

Further along, now locations like towns have an interest in getting themselves recommended as holiday spots by AI. AI might talk about
more notable people from a town that pays for more mentions on
their service, so more people want to go visit historic locations
there. Before you know it people en-mass are absorbing obscure
niches of history and politics by default just because some town
or tourism company paid to boost visitor numbers, and unlike with
old techniques like paid magazine/newspaper articles, now people
really believe they're exploring _the_ true answer to their own
personal questions.

Where Amazon is getting upset is that they'd like to be the ones
running the AI and therefore at the end of the food chain for that
money. Not just another middle-man for retailers, competing equally
with the others for their AI 'thoughtshare'. While we watch these
AI companies squabble over who gets to be king, we've missed the
fact that we're becoming part of their kingdom.

--
Regards
wasbit
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Not many people can afford such.

The amount of people who can afford the service doesn't matter to its
legality though. Either it is allowed for an intermediary to access the
service for me, or it is not.

Without even taking into account that minor online concierge services
are becoming cheaper and cheaper, not just because of AI but because
even as an AI-less shop, if your goal is to have a chat where I can ask
someone to call an Uber or check out what's the cheapest flight to
Toronto next week, you can now provide that by filling a single
three-story building with people typing on computers.
--
Zekromaster
gemini://zekromaster.net
«I have based my affair on nothing»
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sun, 23 Nov 2025 16:46:48 +0100, Zekromaster wrote:

The amount of people who can afford the service doesn't matter to its legality though.

“Legality” ≠ “Susceptibility lawsuits”

Let’s just say that companies might be a little reluctant to get into lawsuits with those who can afford concierges ...
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On Sun, 23 Nov 2025 09:59:48 +0000, wasbit wrote:

The last time I booked a (UK) hotel, by booking direct we got free
parking unlike those who booked through a comparison site.

The carrot works better than the stick!
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 23/11/2025 20:14, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 23 Nov 2025 09:59:48 +0000, wasbit wrote:

The last time I booked a (UK) hotel, by booking direct we got free
parking unlike those who booked through a comparison site.

The carrot works better than the stick!

Yes but I didn't know that comparison site customers had to pay until I
saw someone paying at reception.
When I later checked on the comparison web sites I think there was only
one that mention parking was an extra.
--
Regards
wasbit
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2025-11-22, Mechanicjay <mechanicjay@sol.smbfc.net> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 19:57:21 -0700,
Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 21:00:12 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

I read it as "PROFIT for me, but not for thee", though the end result is the same BS.
Sent from my Personal DECstation 5000/25

Rethinking this, I wonder if it indicates Amazon is making more profits
off of advertising than it is off of the sales of the product? Or at
least, sufficient profits that it is unwilling to compromise the revenue stream.

I avoid Amazon these days as best I can.

Cool Decstation 5000/25!
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:

I avoid Amazon these days as best I can.

I successfully avoided buying from them until this year, when I
bought something from Ebay and it turned up in an Amazon bag (no
padding whatsoever) with an Amazon Prime recipt inside. Turns out
the Ebay seller just orders items from Amazon with your address for
delivery, and sets their Ebay listings to about the price Amazon
offer normal customers without the discounts they get. I wouldn't
mind if they disclosed that in their Ebay listing, but I'm not very
happy about my surprise first Amazon purchase.
--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

I successfully avoided buying from them
until this year, when I
bought something from Ebay and it turned
up in an Amazon bag (no
padding whatsoever) with an Amazon Prime
recipt inside.

I have had this happen with both newegg and etsy. It seems to be highest
risk with new, generic items. Seller feedback may help, but I haven't
had it happen too often.

Sure does deflate attempts to avoid "that bastard Bezos"[*].

[*] Affiliate link text fragment to buy dvds from a review site I read.

Elijah
------
http://www.1000misspenthours.com/general/affiliatelink.jpg
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2025-12-01, Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

I successfully avoided buying from them
until this year, when I
bought something from Ebay and it turned
up in an Amazon bag (no
padding whatsoever) with an Amazon Prime
recipt inside.

I have had this happen with both newegg and etsy. It seems to be highest
risk with new, generic items. Seller feedback may help, but I haven't
had it happen too often.

Sure does deflate attempts to avoid "that bastard Bezos"[*].

Had that just happen 2 weeks ago, when purchasing via AbeBooks!
I thought it was wierd.

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

In comp.misc, Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

Had that just happen 2 weeks ago, when purchasing via AbeBooks!
I thought it was wierd.

Um, hate to break it to you, but Abe Books is owned by that bastard
Bezos. (And Zappos. And Audible. And Goodreads. And Imdb. And Twitch.)

Elijah
------
know your enemy
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote in news:slrn10j3fcp.3ja.jj@iridium.wf32df:

On 2025-12-01, Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

In comp.misc, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:

I successfully avoided buying from them
until this year, when I
bought something from Ebay and it turned
up in an Amazon bag (no
padding whatsoever) with an Amazon Prime
recipt inside.

I have had this happen with both newegg and etsy. It seems to be highest
risk with new, generic items. Seller feedback may help, but I haven't
had it happen too often.

Sure does deflate attempts to avoid "that bastard Bezos"[*].

Had that just happen 2 weeks ago, when purchasing via AbeBooks!
I thought it was wierd.

I tried to order an item from the manufacturer's site last week. It wasn't possible. All searches by the two web browsers I use were effectiviely returned from said manufacturers site by Google Search (lists?) that included the real product and nearly 20 other compeating products similar to it that got displayed. No matter which correct product I selected to order it came
up as a Amazon order for a competing product. I finally gave up and called the manaufacturer to place said order.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.misc

On 2025-12-05, Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

In comp.misc, Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:

Had that just happen 2 weeks ago, when purchasing via AbeBooks!
I thought it was wierd.

Um, hate to break it to you, but Abe Books is owned by that bastard
Bezos.

Shit. Did not know that.

(And Zappos. And Audible. And Goodreads. And Imdb. And Twitch.)

Elijah
------
know your enemy

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2