Amazon itself does that with "Amazon's Choice" brand or whatever. They use the stats of top selling items, clone it for cheap, and take all the sales.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-i...

After a couple really bad experiences with product quality (think clothing items that don't last after a couple washes) I no longer buy Amazon branded items. It's going to play against them over time if they keep messing up on quality.

So once again, we see that institutional behavior seeps into every aspect of a "society", so Amazon only has itself to blame.

That’s no different from store brands at grocery stores. (And it’s AmazonBasics/Solimo.)

I'm not sure what the family's religion has to do with anything, but I was curious about the spelling and put it in my search bar and it's spelled, 'Hasidic'.

Well, I distrust Amazon for anything electrical or buy my electronics and optics from the fine folks at B&H Photo, which is owned by a (Satmar) Hasidic family. Sure, that means I can’t shop on Saturdays and have a much deeper knowledge of the Jewish high holidays calendar than I’d normally care to develop, but I don’t worry about a counterfeit battery blowing up in my face or a SSD upgrade for my computer being a 16GB flash card fraudulently reprogrammed to advertise itself to my computer as a 1TB one.

> Well, I distrust Amazon for anything electrical

I learned this the hard way when I received a counterfeit playstation controller, straight from the "Sony" store. For some reason, none of my reviews, even the positive ones, have posted since that one, which included pictures of a teardown.

Did it damage your playstation?

It was wireless and never connected to the machine, so I'm not sure it was capable of damage. But it also didn't have much of a chance since it would only stay connected for about 30 seconds, after pairing.

Even B&H was susceptible to knock-off batteries. Somewhere in the supply chain, fake batteries were introduced, but not found until sold to customers. B&H actually handled this in the only sane way vs the Amazon shrug of the shoulders.

Supply chain attacks are real and even reputable vendors are susceptible. The difference is how the vendors react with their customers that separates the good vendor from the bad vendor.

The difference is Amazon only pretends to care, and only cares about enough plausible deniability to deflect lawsuits (the courts are catching on and this no longer works). Their practice of stickerless commingled inventory ensures that even buying from Amazon itself is no guarantee of not getting a counterfeit product.

You seem to be pretty generous in saying Amazon pretends. I thought they gave up all connotations of giving a shit long ago

> what the family's religion has to do with anything,

Back in the 1980s, NYC shops noticeably run by Hasidic jewish folk were famous for having the best deals in cameras and hifi.

It was not just local, there was a good amount of mail order business, and a large advertising footprint. I think it faded out in internet e-commerce boom, but for older shoppers the association may be relevant.

Some of it still exists. B&H photo is a very large jewish owned electronics business out of New York. They have some of the best high end electronics selection available online and last time I checked they are closed on the sabbath.

>> Checkout is unavailable while we observe Shabbat. Please come back when checkout reopens at 9:45 pm ET Sat Jul 23

Yep. One of the few reasons to go to Times Square at that time.

I remember 47th Street Photo was a big one.

I KNEW people would ask this ; it was a major aspect of the story for some reason. They kept making reference to how these "ultra orthodox jews in brooklyn" were doing some revolutionary marketing/profiteering on the interenet/amazon specifically and how they were making a fortune doing so...

It was _fundamental_ to whomever wrote the piece...

So I mentioned it here.

Sorry I failed your "anti-semetic triggers" - FFS.

Well, to be fair, if "these scammers are ultra orthodox Jews" was central to the piece "for some reason", the author might've been a tad on the antisemitic side. At least your (in this context overstated and seemingly unnecessary) mention of their religion makes it sound like it.

>At least your (in this context overstated and seemingly unnecessary) mention of their religion makes it sound like it.

I interpreted the comment differently to you. To me, it appeared that the GP was merely trying to give all the details he remembered from the story. Each additional detail helps when trying to find a decade(s) old story on google or similar.

When reporting descriptions of people, the more detail, the better. Withholding things like race, religion, etc in an effort to be more PC results in a less accurate description.

He specifically mentioned Brooklyn though, so to me that sounds more like starting the story with a general feeling of the place.

Basically! this was the take-away

SET THE SCENE: "What you may think of sleepy hassidic brooklyn as a religious enclave -check out these guys with curls making a killing on amazon knock-offs.!"

I am pretty sure I remember the article was about Adorama and B&H selling gray-market import photography goods over mail order and having racist practices or something, not about selling on Amazon.

If you failed to clarify in your original post, it really does look like it's not material to the story: we don't have the context so reasonably people are going to ask why you even brought it up. No need to get so indignant about it.

my thoughts too. Wonder if they would have written 'run by a family of christians'

I'm sorry, I'm not American, nor do I live somewhere where there is anti-jewish sentiment.

Is calling a Jew "Hassidic" derogatory?

No it’s not and the GP is being a overly sensitive for no good reason. It’s a relatively recent sect of Judaism with a well known insular “ultra-orthodox” (more formally Haredi Judaism) Jewish community in New York, primarily Brooklyn and Israel. This is similar to something like the Amish, and pointing out something about Amish furniture or dairy businesses doesn’t make it automatically racist.

Because they are an insular group they are known culturally in the US for their retail enterprises. B&H Photo-Video being the most famous one. Go there now (bhphotovideo.com), you can’t even order during Shabbat.

Sorry mate - it sounds like I called you out too soon.

Ideally, keep race or skin colour or religion etc out of any discussion. As a rule of thumb I try to avoid noting any difference beyond M:F and even then - advisadly.

I don't think there is any reason to note Jew or Hasidic in your post. I have no idea whether a Jew might be offended by that because I would not even get to that point - no need to pontificate about something you don't know about.

People are people, regardless of race, creed or colour.

Let us embrace similarity and not disparity: Us not Them.

I agree completely on not mentioning if not relevant however I believe it was probably a substantial part of the story referenced.

Here’s a NYT article which might provide some context: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/nyregion/hasidic-jews-ama...

It wasn't my comment. But I appreciate the explanation. And I agree, their race wasn't relevant.

I had a similar interpretation of the wording. I’ll take your response in good faith once because I do get the impression you’re asking sincerely, but be warned that should you have further questions you’ll likely fare better taking some time to familiarize yourself with how antisemitism often proliferates:

Noting a person’s Jewish heritage or faith or membership (or that of a business’s proprietor, or some noted portion of their clientele) when their Jewishness is not directly related to the rest of the point is often a signal, like a dog whistle (which is a term often used for this kind of signal). Particularly taking such notice in reference to New York is a strong signal, and often “New York” is used as a substitute for the signal when similar connections might be expected. The first thing it signals to antisemites is identification of a target—either for immediate ridicule, harassment, some other form of abuse… or for identification which places a longer term target on them. The next thing it signals is that like minds are present.

This was all somewhat obscure for even a lot of Americans, and easy to dismiss as an honest mistake rather than an intentional signal in a comment like yours, only a few years ago. Unfortunately a lot of white supremacist movements latched on to these kinds of dog whistles in the course of an election and ultimately an administration which both directly fostered these kinds of dog whistles and indirectly invited them into the mainstream by dismissively reacting to them (and sometimes rehabilitating them on the spot as “very fine people”).

Even so, when it was so obscure, it was a way for fellow travelers to target victims and find compatriots. It’s just a lot more visible now and a lot harder to take comments like [edit: not yours, sorry!] as in good faith.

I appreciate the explanation, thank you. In my neck of the woods you'll often hear "chinese" used in that way. And yes, it's not always obvious that it's meant negatively.