"Amazon seems to think my recent purchase of an air conditioner was just the gateway to an air conditioner collecting hobby."

That's probably not exact and I don't remember where in my social feeds it came from, but I loved this.

Buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner on Amazon... For the next several weeks Amazon thinks I've taken up the popular hobby of collecting vacuum cleaners

I once clicked on a 'russian bride' google ad for a laugh, quite a while back. Google still puts lots of russian and filipino bride ads into my 'bubble' to this day...

You can remove "mistakes" like that from your Google history pretty easily.

To give some justice to the algorithm, after purchasing my first Dyson I wanted to replace all my vacuum cleaners with Dysen.

How many vacuum cleaners do you have?

One per house, like everyone else!

Plebeian.

One per floor per house, of course. You don't want to have to carry them up and down stairs.

Nouveau riche.

All houses should have one floor. Why use stairs or elevators when you can just buy more land?

The staff are downstairs, and they have their own cleaning equipment.

Not the same person, but I have three. I have a roomba for everyday sweeping, a Bissell for actually cleaning the carpets not just sweeping them, and a Black and Decker handheld for the stairs, the car, and other places it's hard to take a full vacuum or a robot.

My Amazon homepage is full of stuff I already own. Even worse is their internet-wide remarketing makes it so I see stuff I own on many of the sites I visit.

There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good.

> There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good.

That is creepy. Any way it might've been more than just a coincidence?

It's possible, but it was a book in a relatively unusual niche that I have a hobbyist interest in. It was a book about the archaeological and linguistic study of proto-Indo-European people (PIE) and their origins and spread by means of horses and the, at the time novel, wheels. I had previously purchased a book or two on linguistics from Amazon so perhaps there is only a small set of popular books in that category for their recommendation algorithm to pick from.

Ah, yeah, that would explain it. Thanks!

Well there was this sometime ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406583

Though that was Google.

I told this story in the recent Amazon recommendations discussion, but I bought a pair of speaker stands from them and before it was even delivered they sent me an email saying "HEY BASED ON YOUR BROWSING HISTORY MAYBE YOU'D LIKE THESE OTHER 10 SPEAKER STANDS!"

I've heard the argument that this prevents buyer's remorse. Not sure if it has any merit.

wait, wouldn't this cause buyer's remorse? like, if I just finally decided to buy some product ... being bombarded with all the other options suddenly makes me rethink my purchase decision, "oh but what if this other one is more gooder!?!?!"

I think the argument is cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias generally function to make you more happy with the one you bought already when presented with other alternatives.

I thought that cognitive dissonance was the buyer's remorse. I've experienced that a few times in my life. Now I've got no qualms about immediately taking stuff back.

Exactly my thoughts, you might see there something with better/more reviews.

What are the (general) financial consequences of buyer's remorse?

For Amazon with a generous return policy, when a person has buyer's remorse, they can return the item. Lost sale.

Funny story:

A while ago I took an Ayurveda class (Indian medicine) and part of it was doing an oil enema. There are devices for this that are also used by a certain population for sexual pleasures. Bought one on Amazon and for months I couldn't show my Amazon page to other people because it was filled with sex toys....

It is possible to delete things from your amazon history. https://www.amazon.com/gp/history

And the lesson here would be not to get involved with Ayrveda.

Or more specifically, not pour random fluids into your butt for some mystical health benefit. Only for pleasure.

Actually I would recommend it. It's quite nice :-)

My favorite sleeping mask is made by Joy Division, a blindfold sold as a sex toy. When I replace it every 1-2 years (or earlier in case I was on a flight…) my Amazon page is full of sex toys ;)

How do they get away with that brand name?

lol

The fact that Amazon doesn't have a way to recommend complimentary products ("oh, you just bought a tent? You probably want some bug spray") boggles.

Isn't that what the "frequently bought together" suggestions are?

Yeah but they should show that in the recommendations, not just when I'm at the product page.

For books this works pretty well for me as I tend to read genres in bursts. If I just read a scifi books, I'll read a bunch more before going back to fantasy ;)

The equivalent for books would be "you might like this paperback copy or a large print version of the book you just purchased along with 3 other editions!"

It's probably correct by expected value. You're just not the multiple wallet type. I'm sure there are people who'd want five wallets, eight different shoe styles, multiple cuts of pants...

Your indifference is subsumed in the sheer size of others' consumption.

You're right that there are categories of products that this absolutely works. When I buy clothes, books, media... even tech, then I probably will buy something related. But there are some "one-off" purchases that Amazon doesn't need to hound be about.

Dude it's a wallet not a coach purse.

I have multiple wallets. I have one I take on business trips that contains my work ID, American Express, business cards, etc. All stuff I normally don't carry with me. I have an everyday wallet with cash and my bank card and stuff I need everyday. And if I'm dressing up, I don't want to ruin the lines of my suit so I have a far slimmer wallet that just has my ID and space for one credit card.

I mean I'm not accessorizing with the latest seasonal fashions, but there are utility reasons to change the kind of wallet you're carrying for different purposes.