Thread

1. rr808 · 1790014595 · focus · HN ↗

   It makes total sense for Amazon to block agents. It sucks having to manually check multiple sites for prices and delivery of something you want so is easier just to use Amazon which is usually very good. If people start using agents Amazon is less likely to get the sale and are more vulnerable to competition. Better to kill this trend off asap.

   1. brookst · 1790018382 · focus · HN ↗

      I don't think it does make sense. I think Amazon is way overestimating brand loyalty, and underestimating how much of their success comes from being a one-stop shop for everything.

      I'm using Claude for everything from finances to dinner planning to project planning. If Amazon doesn't let Claude search and buy, I'm not abandoning Claude, I'm abandoning Amazon.

      As long as my actions are as simple as possible, I don't care whether Claude is searching 5000 online retailers or only 4999, minus Amazon. I'm certainly not going to say "ok, this project requires buying 13 things for about $500, but I don't see amazon in the list, so let me go manually search for each one on Amazon and see if they might have a better price or something."

      This is Walmart / Apple Pay all over again. Yes, near-monopolies, lots of power. But they got there by making things easy for consumers. Making things difficult to force consumer behavior never ends well.

      1. gjsman-1000 · 1790018879 · focus · HN ↗

         Most people don't have the disposable income to ever let an agent casually make a purchase for them.

         1. brookst · 1790019156 · focus · HN ↗

            I never let agents make purchases unsupervised. But that wasn't the point; the point is that the convenience of getting a complete list including multiple-vendors when pricing makes sense is way better than going to amazon and searching one by one, therefore Amazon will lose this power play.

            The same would be true for someone shopping for one $10 item.

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