• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Or: “Products you may be interested in!” [List of the exact products you already bought.]

    I am not buying a second laptop just like the one I just bought. It is not, in an ideal scenario, a consumable item.

  • Twink@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Ads don’t make sense. I pay a fiver for the Netflix subscription with ads. I get ads for expensive cars. Do they really think I can afford an expensive car, but not a tenner?

    • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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      1 year ago

      Reminds me how people who have been paying much more in rent each month for years, often decades, are constantly refused mortgages for being “high risk” 🤦

      • derpgon@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        And then going into the negative on your credit card and paying it in time somehow makes you have good financial decisions.

      • Twink@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It makes sense when you look at reality rather than lies. They want to own you. Everything is set up to make it so they own you and you cannot rebel because you own no means of survival.

      • Aux@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s because if the rates suddenly go up, you won’t be able to afford the mortgage and you’ll go bankrupt. If your rent goes too high, you can just find a cheaper place.

        • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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          1 year ago

          That’s simply not true. The number one cause of homelessness in the US is a nationwide lack of affordable housing, including rentals.

        • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I am compelled to point out here that one does not have to go with a variable rate mortgage. I would say one should never go with a variable rate mortgage for exactly the reason you state.

          Additionally, rent is insane. One might not find cheaper rent, without getting help from the state. And if you make more than $60,000 a year, good luck with that.

  • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s Nate Bargatzki who talked about how he bought a refrigerator and then Amazon kept recommending refrigerators to him. He said “I already solved that problem, Amazon. Remember? You were there”.

    • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Interesting thing is they could do this smartly. You buy a refrigerator, and Amazon could keep track of average replacement age of that product, then about the time it’s due to be replaced, start sending you ads for another. That is when they would be useful.

      Instead we get ads for the thing we just bought and I don’t understand why this practice continues. It can’t actually result in higher profits…right?

  • Polar@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    It more so pisses me off when I buy a really expensive item and Amazon is trying to sell me a second one.

    Like ya, maybe I’ll consider getting another pack of pens, but I think I’m good on the GPU.

  • pfannkuchen_gesicht@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    It’s always funny to me when someone talks about how awesome the tech behind recommender-systems is and what complex problems had to be solved to make it work but in the end it’s still just absolute garbage.

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not really that interesting, you find hot spots where interest between items is correlated.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          AI/ML covers a ton of algorithms, some of them are that boring, some of them aren’t.

          Re above. Take all users who viewed all items. Run a MapReduce to segregate them into pairs. Calculate the frequency of pairs and store the result. That clearer? More expensive than complex.

          • pfannkuchen_gesicht@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Reducing the computational cost is what makes it complex… but why am I even discussing this here anyway, I was mocking the topic in the first place. Your disregard of the problems in the details is kinda amusing though, because that’s probably the reason most recommender engines are as crap as they are.

            • dx1@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Well, there’s problems that are complex at the center, and there’s problems that aren’t. This one isn’t.

    • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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      1 year ago

      While you’re here, allow us to tempt you with this fine selection of unadorned plastic garbage cans that are either too small for your garbage or just barely too big for your garbage bags.

  • notatoad@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    this always reassures me a little bit. all the tracking and targeting and whatever that we’re supposed to be afraid of on the internet, and they still haven’t figured out a better form of targeting than this.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          1 year ago

          I have two choices in this town- a big box store or buy from Amazon. At least I don’t have to get in my car and drive 10 miles, park in the back of a parking lot, be bombarded by corporate propaganda in the form of visuals and audio, annoyed by salespeople who have been told to annoy me on purpose and finally get to the toilet seat, then stand on line for 20 minutes because they have one cashier and the guy at the front of the line wants to pay in a combination of a handwritten check, pennies and lottery tickets and won’t listen to the fact that they don’t accept checks, pennies or lottery tickets, then walk through the parking lot and drive back home if I buy from Amazon.

          Other than that, what difference does it make? Either one horrible megacorporation gets my money or the other one does.

          The fact is, those of us outside of larger cities, we don’t have a lot of options much of the time. There is no small business hardware store here. Not anymore.

          • yata@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            The fact is, those of us outside of larger cities, we don’t have a lot of options much of the time. There is no small business hardware store here. Not anymore.

            Perhaps not, but are there not online alternatives to amazon?

              • yata@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Have you tried searching? With such preconceived notions, it doesn’t really sound like you even tried searching.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  1 year ago

                  Exactly how much time should I spend searching for a non-major corporation to buy a toilet seat online from? You obviously have no ideas yourself how to do this. What small mom and pop internet shop do you get every piece of hardware you need from?

          • MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The fact is, those of us outside of larger cities, we don’t have a lot of options much of the time. There is no small business hardware store here. Not anymore.

            Even those of us who live in areas with “lots of options” don’t have lots of options. I regularly (less so lately) waste days calling or driving to stores that should have what I seek, find nothing, then end up ordering from Amazon anyway.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              1 year ago

              I don’t doubt that, and I just don’t see why it matters if my money goes to Lowes or goes to Amazon when, at the end of the day, both companies rake in cash while exploiting their workers and damaging the environment, so I’m pretty much fucked no matter what I do.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    Let’s be honest though… there’s been a time in your life that you’ve gone into a public restroom and wished that you had your own toilet seat with you.

  • wearling0600@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s mad!

    I bought a laptop, from Amazon, something I do at most every 2-3 years.

    For months since Amazon has been spamming me with laptop offers. I don’t see what the best case scenario here is, I return the one I bought and get a new one?

  • ZarbtheBard@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Whenever I would buy rabbit food for a rabbit I was taking care of I would always get ads for chinchilla food and food for other small mammals. Like, I’m not out here collecting animals I just got the one.