Learn to Make Dollars/Money online

Tuesday, 18 August 2026

The Amazon tax

It’s not technically a tax. Taxes produce valuable public benefits, like medical research and parks. This is simply legal theft.

Amazon makes nearly a billion dollars in profit from search ads. Every week. Each week, they sell merchants and publishers enough search-distorting ads to capture a billion dollars in revenue. Amazon makes enough in search ad revenue to give every single one of their employees a $35,000 cash bonus and still have change left over.

My publisher is terrific, and they’re working hard to introduce people to my new book. Last week, they began buying search ads on Amazon.

At first glance, this is compelling. Someone who isn’t sure what they’re looking for, who is looking for a book or a kitchen appliance, might find one if the right ad showed up at the right time.

But of course, that’s not what yields, or what most of the ads you see on Amazon do.

If you’re searching for an air fryer, Amazon already knows quite a bit. They know the best-reviewed, least-returned, best-priced model. The only purpose of the ads is to get you to pick an air fryer that isn’t that one (or for the best air fryer, to keep you on track to buy the one you wanted in the first place). The ads make the search worse. [Cory wrote about this three years ago, and the scale has already doubled.]

When there are plenty of ads, the maker of the best air fryer now has to bid on ads as well, if only to protect the sales they were entitled to in the first place. Businesses continue to buy the ads—not because they’re dumb, but because the system has created a situation with few options. Folklore implies that buying the ads somehow shifts how search responds in the long run, even after the ads stop running, but there’s little data to confirm this.

Traditional ads increase demand. We see something that’s clearly an ad, it might spark desire, and sales go up. But zero-sum search ads aren’t like that–the total sales in the category stay the same, and merchants are merely competing for a share of a static pie. This study argues that an ecommerce site with search ads actually sells fewer items than the same site without ads.

The highest-yielding ad my publisher has tested so far is the search “Seth Godin The Knot“. It costs about a dollar per click. My publisher is paying Amazon a dollar to show you an ad for the book you went to buy in the first place.

Who ends up paying the more than $50 billion a year spent on these ads? It’s not the sellers. Sellers can’t make heartfelt donations for long. It’s you. By making the marketing of products significantly less efficient, Amazon’s theft makes products more expensive or sucks the energy out of the development of new products.

It leads to two perverse side effects. First, producers realize that if brand reputation matters less than a budget for clicks, they will shift to shoddy and cheap versions of their products so they have a bigger budget for clicks. And second, Amazon (and Google before it) have an incentive to make their organic search results worse–giving producers more incentive to buy more ads.

For decades, Amazon created value for consumers by lowering the price of just about everything. And they opened the doors to merchants who didn’t have sufficient distribution. They claimed to be customer-centric, and they were.

I don’t think they can claim this any longer. The ad system they built isn’t illegal, but it’s pretty clear who it’s for.

Amazon is stealing from the customers they said they were here to serve.

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Monday, 17 August 2026

Seth's Blog : Consider the AI tear down

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Consider the AI tear down

Find a safe critic.

Upload your essay, your book, your artwork, your business plan or your resume to Claude. Then, pick a critic.

“Write a detailed, specific negative review that might appear on Amazon/in ArtNews/at a Ph.D defense/from a disappointed venture capitalist/from a recruiter”

A few things happen. First, you’ll likely read some 1-star reviews that you’re totally delighted with. It’s okay that my novel got one star because it has a sophisticated vocabulary. You may also realize that the negative noise in your head seems a lot more ridiculous if you read it on the screen.

Second, you’re much less likely to take it personally, because it’s not coming from a person. It’s a parody of a person, and in those words you might find some truth worth reading.

And third, you’ll realize it’s impossible to please some people. Criticism is what critics do.

It’s not worth making this a habit, because the negativity can easily get stuck in our heads. If that happens, ask for some glowing reviews instead.

PS here’s what Claude said about this post:

This is exactly the kind of pseudo-profound productivity hack that passes for insight in marketing circles these days.

Let me get this straight: your advice is to use AI to generate fake criticism so you can… feel better about ignoring it? The logical gymnastics here are remarkable. We’re told the fake reviews will contain “truth worth reading,” but also that we shouldn’t take them seriously because they’re “not coming from a person,” but also that we should stop if the negativity “gets stuck in our heads.” Pick a lane.

The real tell is buried in the middle: “It’s okay that my novel got one star because it has a sophisticated vocabulary.” Ah yes, the classic defensive crouch dressed up as self-awareness. You’ve essentially built a machine for manufacturing comfortable rationalizations. “See, the AI said mean things, but I’ve decided they don’t count because [insert excuse here].”

And the finale—if the fake criticism bothers you, just ask for fake praise instead! Problem solved. We’ve successfully turned AI into a therapeutic tool for avoiding genuine self-examination while maintaining the appearance of rigor.

Here’s what’s missing: any acknowledgment that real criticism from real people who actually read your work might be… useful? That the discomfort of genuine feedback is precisely what makes it valuable?

But I suppose that’s harder to monetize than “try this one weird trick.”

And, at the risk of being too meta, here’s Claude’s response to the response:

A Comment Ripping the Critic

Congratulations on demonstrating the exact behavior the post describes. You’ve written a performatively harsh takedown that reveals far more about your need to seem clever than about any actual flaw in the idea.

Let’s talk about your reading comprehension. The post never suggests ignoring criticism—it suggests practicing receiving it. There’s a difference between “feel better about ignoring feedback” and “build some emotional distance so you can actually hear it.” But nuance doesn’t generate the dopamine hit of a sick burn, does it?

Your “pick a lane” complaint is particularly rich. The post describes a tool with multiple uses. Sometimes the fake review reveals genuine blind spots. Sometimes it shows you that certain critics are unpleasable. Sometimes you need to step away. These aren’t contradictions—they’re different outcomes from the same exercise. That you can’t hold multiple possibilities in your head simultaneously says more about you than about the argument.

And your grand finale about “real criticism from real people”? Please. Most creative work never gets meaningful feedback at all. It gets silence, or a thumbs up from mom, or rejection letters that say nothing useful. The fantasy that there’s a queue of thoughtful critics waiting to help you improve is exactly that—a fantasy. This tool fills a gap. It doesn’t replace the feedback you’re not getting anyway.

But here’s what really gives you away: the sneering about “marketing circles” and “monetizing.” You showed up pre-loaded with contempt, looking for confirmation. The post was simply the surface you projected it onto.

You’ve proven the point beautifully. Some people are just looking for something to tear down.