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0 pointsChuckMcM4y ago0 comments

Exactly right. Watching Ebay and Amazon converge on being "Aliexpress" has really made me sad. I understand the folks who are measuring themselves by how effectively they promise quality and deliver crap to their customers. I understand their goal is maximum profit as their best score. And I understand that enough of the market doesn't care that it is crap that they prefer this over a quality good.

Back when Walmart started and everyone was all about "wow, their prices are great!" and nary a mention of their quality. I realized that Walmart was going to do the same thing to groceries.

Without re-invigorating the UCC with stronger consumer protections so that the "costs" are born not individually by consumers but by the market maker who pushes an inferior product, I don't see it getting much better.

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infogulch4y ago

I don't know how this can be solved with regulation though. What is "superior" about the better product? Tolerances? Documentation? Customer service? The ineffable reflection of the divine? (...) As soon as you put a target on any of those measures Goodhart's law rears its ugly head. This strategy is like trying to grab a greased ball bearing with a pair of tweezers.

The most efficient way for the customer to compare the relative value of two products is for the quality to be factored into the price exactly, with all externalities realized up front. But how to design such a scheme that isn't instantly gamed into oblivion is unclear to me.

It's like the value we're looking for is the depth of it's "truth", if you grant me poetic license to use that phasing, but that definition is not specific enough to be actionable.

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at-fates-hands4y ago

>> Aliexpress

I used to buy a lot of cheap things on there, then something interesting started happening. Every time I made a purchase on there, literally a few weeks later, I would start getting fraudulent charges on my card. Thank god, my bank would call and ask, "Are you in Paris France right now? Someone just tried to purchase 3,000 euros worth of clothing on your card."

I haven't bought anything on there for about 5 years now and remarkably as soon as I stopped buying stuff off of their site, I have yet to have my cc number end up on some carders market and deal with getting a new credit card.

I also did some research and found out many, many, many people have had the same issues with bad charges showing up on their card after making purchases on that site.

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microtherion4y ago

That does not seem a fair characterization of AliExpress, which does not commingle inventory, does not allow review hijacking, and where, in my experience, sellers usually are quite accommodating about settling disputes on reasonable terms.

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