Cranky about agents, the press, and football
I’m cranky this week. Everything I read is irritating me. First up, Amazon and Muse.
I’ve been an Amazon.com customer since they launched in 1995. Initially I loved Amazon.com — the early experience as an online book store was fantastic and gave me access to books I couldn’t always easily find at retail. But the site moved on from that core mission long ago, and increasingly the site feels like it is more about serving Amazon and less about serving me.
Now Amazon is blocking Muse. This doesn’t sit well; Amazon is working against my interests in at least 4 ways.
- I have a reasonable expectation that a retail site will let me browse, save information, comparison shop, share info with friends, let other people buy on my behalf. This is how physical retail works. This is how online sites have worked. The experience is largely open and unfettered for users.
- Amazon claims that “Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.” And, well, I didn’t agree to sh%t. I created my Amazon account in 1995. I am sure I didn’t sign away any agent rights in 1995, and Amazon hasn’t sent me any new T&Cs to agree to — I had an agent scan my inboxes, and there is nothing there. Maybe Amazon will claim that I implicitly agreed to something by using their site, but that is legalistic corporate nonsense speak.
- The Amazon shopping experience sucks. Search is terrible, the site is overrun with ads and sponsored content, the site is full of cloned goods from no-name brands, “Prime” doesn’t really mean much for delivery speed anymore, etc etc. So Amazon wants to block me from using a superior shopping UX while their own UX sucks?
- Users are moving to chat and agents. Is Amazon seriously going to try to fight this? We will just move our buying elsewhere. Amazon would be better off providing better information to agents rather than banning them.
Amazon has a lot of leverage, and they will throw their weight around. They don’t seem to be acting in customers’ interests. This move makes me less trusting of Amazon and less likely to use their shopping service, not more likely.
Freedom of the Press
Yet again, this President forgets he works for us and that the Constitution binds his behavior. The White House asserts that they have the right to exclude any press they don’t like:
Last week, President Donald J. Trump removed CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds after years of false reporting. The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.
Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never “every outlet gets in.” It was always “our side stays in.”
Nice to see other press outlets standing with CNN, MSNOW, and ProPublica. Starve the guy of attention.
College Football
From Why the Senate Is Weirdly Obsessed with College Sports Instead of Real Problems:
The PCSA does not cap any of this spending. It only takes on the athletes’ compensation. So outrageous coaching salaries and buyouts are fine; it’s only the people who work for a living playing the sports that get dinged.
This legislation is deeply unfair and abusive towards the young athletes. It is yet another attempt by powerful adults and organizations to siphon off the dollars generated by the sport into their own pockets or pet projects, with no say from the athletes at all.
And honestly, doesn't the Senate have real problems to work on?