In your original comment, the statement "But you may as well" misses the entire point of the quote from the article. You only "may as well" if the only point of that quote is privacy related, but it is not. The benefit of not providing an account or downloading an app is that it provides less friction for the shopper, so you shouldn't "may as well" do it just because of an unrelated privacy side-note.

I was not commenting on the thing that the quote was intending to talk about. I was commenting on the privacy implications of what it actually said. From a privacy point of view, you may as well sign up for an account or install an app -- that's a problem for those of us who wouldn't sign up for an account or install an app due to security concerns.

>I was not commenting on the thing that the quote was intending to talk about.

Exactly, and that's the definition of a strawman.

Again, I do agree with your larger points about privacy, but the presentation of your argument rubbed me the wrong way.

> Exactly, and that's the definition of a strawman.

No, it's not. A strawman is when you are asserting that someone is making an argument they aren't making, so that you can knock down that argument rather than what they are really postulating.

I am not doing that. I haven't asserted that Amazon was making any sort of privacy argument here. I am the one making the privacy argument.

If I say that one way to improve early hand-eye coordination is to give all preschoolers loaded guns, and you tell me that the implications of giving all preschoolers loaded guns is that they will kill each other, that's not a strawman. You're just pointing out that my solution has problems.

I can't come back at you and say, "but I wasn't talking about mortality rates, I was just talking about hand-eye coordination. Your objection is irrelevant to my point."

Similarly, when Amazon makes a statement that using credit cards linked to email is a good way to get around making an Amazon account, and JohnFen correctly asserts that this does nothing for privacy whatsoever, and that Amazon will still make ghost tracking accounts for every shopper, that's not a strawman. They're just pointing out that Amazon's solution doesn't solve the problem.

The reason we don't want accounts isn't because making them is too hard or because we don't own smartphones -- it's explicitly because of the tracking. It's not a convenience problem; using a credit card and a smartphone are both equally convenient for most people.

Amazon is saying, "tell the people who are worried about making accounts that they don't need to, so it's fine." JohnFen is replying, "that doesn't address the reason people like me are worried about making an account."

It absolutely is not the definition of a strawman.

Reading between the lines of marketing (or any text, really) is an important element of critical thinking. There's no rule that says I have to only talk about what your commercial wants me to talk about.

Are you really suggesting we should just uncritically nod along with whatever facile ideas are fed to us by an advert? <-- (Psst...this is actually a strawman)

"A straw man (or strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent."

Saying "but you may as well" gives the impression that you refuted the point the quote was making, but in reality you were refuting a point that, by your own admission, the quote was not making. That is a strawman.

Reading between the lines of a commercial is fine, and encouraged. Dismissing the point of the commercial entirely because of a semi-related tangent is not.

If you meant it differently (perhaps not to dismiss the quote's "argument" but instead to just bring up the privacy implications separately) that's great and I'll take your word for it (and even agree with it), I just found your original quote to be saying something different.

edit: I see that you are not the original poster of the comment. This comment was meant for that person, not you. Apologies.