{"id":31047,"date":"2019-09-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=31047"},"modified":"2019-09-26T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T12:00:00","slug":"of-stick-vacuums-amazon-and-probabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=31047","title":{"rendered":"Of Stick Vacuums, Amazon, and Probabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would have thought that the probability of my ever buying something from Amazon was zero. Yet when I took the quiz below I got a surprising result.
\n
\nWould you shop at Amazon if…<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. it saved you money<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Yes
    \nNo \u2713
    \nNot sure<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. It was really convenient<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Yes
      \nNo \u2713
      \nNot sure<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. It would reverse climate change<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Yes
        \nNo \u2713
        \nNot sure<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. It would save the life of a child who is dear to you<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Yes
          \nNo \u2713
          \nNot sure
          \nProbability index of ever shopping at Amazon in your lifetime – 50%<\/strong>
          \n\"\"<\/a>I couldn’t see how the quiz resulted in a 50% probability score. That changed a few days later when our stalwart home stick vacuum of many years gave out. As I researched the modern world of stick vacuums it become clear to me that there were two kinds of people, Dyson people and Shark people. I perceived that my wife and I were Dyson people. Furthermore, reading through a variety of reviews, I determined \u00a0that there were three vacuum makers to consider. First off was Dyson of course, but there were two other strong options in the Dyson genre: Tineco,and Onson. I quickly realized that the Onson was only available in one style and only sold at Amazon.
          \nThe choice then came down to the\u00a0          Dyson Absolute 8<\/a> and either the Tineco A 11 Hero<\/a> or the Tineco A 11 Master<\/a>. It looked like a toughie until I discovered something. The Tineco company<\/a>, though appearing to be independently owned, is exclusively sold and distributed through Amazon. There is no other place to buy one. I bought a Dyson.
          \nI understand now that the 50% probability had to do with a different question. Would you be willing to live in a world where Dyson too was owned and or distributed exclusively through Amazon, where Amazon is not only difficult to avoid purchasing from but impossible, in which Amazon not only has exclusive ownership of both large-scale publishing and self-publishing arms but exclusive distribution of many independently owned publishers as well?
          \nThe answer to that is I don’t know but I’ll find out soon if the scope of the monopolistic power Amazon is bringing to bear through leveraging their marketplace and distribution systems to control access to third party producers is not recognized and acted on quickly. Will the antitrust scrutiny being brought to bear now bring enough understanding, urgency and resolve to bear to avoid that world? The probability index of that is 50%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          A quiz reveals the surprising probabilities of Amazon purchasing despite consumer intent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}