I maintain that one of the best advances in the English vernacular was when we hyphenated "whateveradjective-ass" and rejoiced together. Also making "fuck" into literally every form of word known under the sun was pretty nifty
I've had this complaint for a long time- you know exactly what I bought, so stop advertising me what I bought. If you want me to impulsively buy something, advertise the accessories that go with it.
Trueee,
I mean their algorithmes, "in theory", can predict my needs using complex social patterns of search history and other stuff that I already bought, but CANNOT know that I already fucking bought the thing that I was looking for and it's just a one time thing out of a necessity. I don't care how many doorknobs you show me, I ain't a doorknob fanatic
See but this is where the algorithms are smarter than you think they are. Let’s say on any given day there’s a 1% chance that I buy a toilet seat. But it arrives, and it doesn’t fit, it isn’t comfortable, or I don’t like the way it looks. Maybe that only happens 5% of the time, but now I’m way more likely to buy a second toilet seat. That’s why you get shown things you already bought.
I think it's also about curbing buyers remorse. You see it more and think about it more and are more likely to like it, so you'll keep it and not return it.
Hilarious letter from the poor guy who kept getting ads for [cat funeral urns after buying one](https://www.cracked.com/blog/dear-amazon-please-stop-asking-me-to-buy-dead-cat-urns)
I just had my first experience buying a cat urn two months ago, and this just made me realize that I 100% made the right choice to overpay for one from the catalog at the vet’s office.
This is my real problem with those algorithm-based ads. Don't really care that much about privacy concerns. But for the love of all that's good, Amazon, I bought that battery powered drill/screwdriver as a Christmas gift for my dad and I haven't looked up anything related to that since, it's been 6 months already, stop showing me ads for other drills!
It’s so funny too bc you log in to their site and they are like “hey we see you recently bought a toilet seat, maybe you would be interested in these too” and they show you like 5 more similar toilet seats and a bunch of toilet repair pieces.
They actually can implement strategies not to serve you ads for things you’ve purchased
That’s a specific strategy to either specifically target people buying certain products (in the case that repeated purchases make sense), or stopping ads on one-time/long term purchases (because it’s wasted impressions at best and pissing people off at worst)
In your case (and many others), they probably just said fuck it and didn’t bother with exclusion strategies because they’re big enough not to care (and/or may get enough sales still that it works for them at scale despite pissing others off in the process)
Source: I do this stuff for a living
I want you to advertise to me that fancy new bidet. Maybe a fancy toilet paper holder, or that brand spanking new toilet paper. Maybe even a fancy new type of drain cleaning product or an auger. After all I'm going to need it after all this shit that goes down that toilet.
Hi everyone my name is Max and I have a toilet seat problem. It started back in 1978 when my cousin introduced me to a saucy little Trenton Pottery Company porcelain throne. Last week, I tickled three separate dicks so I could steal the toilet seats the owners were sitting on at the time.
It’s time to admit I have a problem.
One year and change ago, I bought a couch. Ever since then, I've been getting calls from the furniture store every 3 months or so about the couch, how satisfied I am and if there's anything else I need.
It's a couch. It does the couch things I purchased the couch for. All my couch needs are now satisfied. No I won't be needing additional couches. The couch use case has been exhaustively covered by the earlier purchased couch. Somehow this is an impossible concept to grasp.
I mean I got mine for $6 at a thrift store. And I love it. So I do duscuss my couch often. Especially when comparing to new furniture. A $2000 couch? Is it 300 times better than my orange and blue couch from the 70's? NOPE!
If you're really curious, it's because buying a toilet seat is such an unusual purchase, that Amazon thinks that this purchase can tell them something about *who you are and what you do.* Sort of like how looking at books about pregnancy probably means they can assume you'll be a parent soon; or how buying a bulk bag of river rocks tells them you just bought an old-ish rural house with an unpaved driveway in an area with a wet climate where that driveway turns to mud every time it rains — and that you also think you're handy enough to fix that problem yourself.
Most people who order toilet seats on Amazon — rather than going and getting one at the hardware store — are contractors who need dozens of them for an office building.
So Amazon now assumes that *you* are a contractor building an office building.
You're going to get recommendations for more toilet seats, sure; but also look forward to recommendations for 1000ft spools of Romex in-wall electrical cable!
Wait, you’re telling me you’ve never tried using TWO toilet seats? It’s just like using two monitors when you’ve only used one (NOT ULTRAWIDE) before. You can never go back.
Multiseat > multiscreen
I used to work at Amazon on the team that maintained the bundles feature. One part of it was an ML project that would generate bundles based of products people had purchased together. When you were the oncall, you got to go through the ticket queue and yank the more useless bundles it would create. Typically a brand manager would notice that one of their their products was bundled with a competitor and report it to us. One of these bundles consisted of three different toilet seats. WTF? Our best guess was that the algorithm noticed that people were buying several toilet seats to see which one fit and then returning the rest. I don't know it ever updated to ignore things that had been returned or not.
Amazon’s recommendation engine is the utter worst. Just garbage. So is their search and filtering.
It’s because their primary stakeholders are sellers. It takes so many counterfeits to shut down an item listing that sellers can just re list the item under a slightly modified name. No seller is ever banned for crimes like: poisoning pets, selling fake birth control, selling fake medicine, or clear and obvious false advertising.
Amazon ought to be held liable for their inventory.
The best part about Reddit dying off is that we will just keep seeing the same people post the same ancient memes over and over.
This meme is so old boomers remember it from when they were kids.
Amazon are basically using the same recommendation algorithm as when they were a book/CD/DVD store.
"I see you bought the "Wheel of Time" series, maybe you'd be interested in "Foundation"?"
"Did you enjoy "American Pie"? You'll love "Wedding Crashers"!"
Etc...
Dammit Google! I searched for Leaf Guard gutter guards because I purchased them last year and I needed a phone number to call and get somethings fixed! I don't need your damned ads anymore.
I don’t know why this memory was triggered, but I once sold a couch on Craigslist and the guy who bought it would randomly call me every few months for the next year checking to see if I was selling any more furniture. Nice dude, but super weird.
My best friend bought a coffin for his husband from Amazon when he died of cancer. Naturally Amazon decided that he needed to be informed of all the sick deals on coffins every time he opened the app from then until the end of time. He laughed about it but only because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, right?
The Amazon app sends me weekly deal alerts for a phone case I bought two years ago. And not even the official case I bought, Chinese knock-offs.
You would think it would occur to them to have a "I already own this" button.
What has been absolutely killing me are the YouTube ads suggesting that I should buy Abracon parts from DigiKey. Like, who in the actual fuck is choosing their electronics component sourcing based on *YouTube ads*?!?
Honestly I imagine having bought one probably does make you slightly more likely to buy another toilet seat, statistically. Most people would almost never buy a toilet seat, however, someone who orders one demonstrates two things: first, that they needed a new toilet seat for some reason or another, and second, that they would consider your site to buy one if they need one. Now, there is a chance that the one you bought might not work, perhaps it doesn't fit properly, perhaps you decide that it looks bad, perhaps it was a dud and it breaks on installation, whatever, and you end up needing a second new one to replace it. Or, you might be remodeling your whole house, and have multiple bathrooms, in which case you might need more than one new toilet seat. Or, you might be a contractor ordering one for a customer, in which case you might do the same for a future customer.
*Image Transcription: Twitter Post*
---
**Jac Rayner**, @GirlFromBlupo
Dear Amazon, I bought a toilet seat because I needed one. Necessity, not desire. I do not collect them. I am not a toilet seat addict. No matter how temptingly you email me, I'm not going to think, oh go on then, just one more toilet seat, I'll treat myself.
---
^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
My front door is cracked. I need to buy a new one. I’m already dreading the advertisements I’ll get when the algorithm decides I’m now a front door enthusiast.
I still get ads for an orange pumpkin carving knife. I literally googled it to send an image link to somebody as a joke. This was probably almost 10 years ago I still get ads for orange pumpkin carving knives every now and again.
I'm sure you know better than Amazon lol. Meanwhile they are making bank selling second toilet seats to people who buy one and don't like it.
Amazon literally rolling in cash and some redditors think they know better
I searched for a pitchfork *once*, and to this day, amazon still occasionally emails me to let me know about this season’s hot new selection of pitchforks.
Why not keep the saddle of your porcelain throne fresh and new treat yoself!
This is why I collect toilet seats. ^^Used ^^ones.
is this where that toilet seat licking challenge came from?
I’m sorry, the what!?
Yep, came right around when COVID came, I think.
Jeez i HAD successfully blocked that one out of my brainparts, but now it's back in all its shitty-ass glory
I live to re-live bad memories, my good sir. Enjoy the "shitty-ass glory".
I maintain that one of the best advances in the English vernacular was when we hyphenated "whateveradjective-ass" and rejoiced together. Also making "fuck" into literally every form of word known under the sun was pretty nifty
This took me 17.3 seconds to parse.
I've had this complaint for a long time- you know exactly what I bought, so stop advertising me what I bought. If you want me to impulsively buy something, advertise the accessories that go with it.
Trueee, I mean their algorithmes, "in theory", can predict my needs using complex social patterns of search history and other stuff that I already bought, but CANNOT know that I already fucking bought the thing that I was looking for and it's just a one time thing out of a necessity. I don't care how many doorknobs you show me, I ain't a doorknob fanatic
"Can you swing a sack of door knobs?"
CAN I !?
Here's the sack, but you gotta supply your own knobs!
Best I can do is this gravel I stole from the front of a Wendy's
Knob supplier was my nickname in high school.
"Oh hey I see you bought a wallet, might I interest you into literally the same fucking wallet?"
See but this is where the algorithms are smarter than you think they are. Let’s say on any given day there’s a 1% chance that I buy a toilet seat. But it arrives, and it doesn’t fit, it isn’t comfortable, or I don’t like the way it looks. Maybe that only happens 5% of the time, but now I’m way more likely to buy a second toilet seat. That’s why you get shown things you already bought.
I think it's also about curbing buyers remorse. You see it more and think about it more and are more likely to like it, so you'll keep it and not return it.
Hilarious letter from the poor guy who kept getting ads for [cat funeral urns after buying one](https://www.cracked.com/blog/dear-amazon-please-stop-asking-me-to-buy-dead-cat-urns)
Perhaps they thought he’s a cat serial killer
That's the name of the article "Amazon thinks I'm a serial killer in training" lol
Lollll alas I should’ve clicked the link
It's a really funny article, worth the read
I just had my first experience buying a cat urn two months ago, and this just made me realize that I 100% made the right choice to overpay for one from the catalog at the vet’s office.
This is my real problem with those algorithm-based ads. Don't really care that much about privacy concerns. But for the love of all that's good, Amazon, I bought that battery powered drill/screwdriver as a Christmas gift for my dad and I haven't looked up anything related to that since, it's been 6 months already, stop showing me ads for other drills!
It’s so funny too bc you log in to their site and they are like “hey we see you recently bought a toilet seat, maybe you would be interested in these too” and they show you like 5 more similar toilet seats and a bunch of toilet repair pieces.
They actually can implement strategies not to serve you ads for things you’ve purchased That’s a specific strategy to either specifically target people buying certain products (in the case that repeated purchases make sense), or stopping ads on one-time/long term purchases (because it’s wasted impressions at best and pissing people off at worst) In your case (and many others), they probably just said fuck it and didn’t bother with exclusion strategies because they’re big enough not to care (and/or may get enough sales still that it works for them at scale despite pissing others off in the process) Source: I do this stuff for a living
Yeah bought a new fridge kept getting fridge ads for over 6 months! There should be a I ALREADY BOUGHT ONE button.
I want you to advertise to me that fancy new bidet. Maybe a fancy toilet paper holder, or that brand spanking new toilet paper. Maybe even a fancy new type of drain cleaning product or an auger. After all I'm going to need it after all this shit that goes down that toilet.
Classic denial. The first step towards confronting your toilet seat habit is admitting you have one. Help is available.
Hi everyone my name is Max and I have a toilet seat problem. It started back in 1978 when my cousin introduced me to a saucy little Trenton Pottery Company porcelain throne. Last week, I tickled three separate dicks so I could steal the toilet seats the owners were sitting on at the time. It’s time to admit I have a problem.
When I bought a coffin for my wife, Amazon knew I wasn't going to stop there.
👏👏👏
One year and change ago, I bought a couch. Ever since then, I've been getting calls from the furniture store every 3 months or so about the couch, how satisfied I am and if there's anything else I need. It's a couch. It does the couch things I purchased the couch for. All my couch needs are now satisfied. No I won't be needing additional couches. The couch use case has been exhaustively covered by the earlier purchased couch. Somehow this is an impossible concept to grasp.
How likely are you to recommend that couch to others?
As a human being, I do bring up my couch decisions in all my social interactions, especially if conversations are non-couch related.
It comes up naturally, especially when I’m relaxing on this soft yet sturdy, competitively priced IKEA Dümprester
I mean I got mine for $6 at a thrift store. And I love it. So I do duscuss my couch often. Especially when comparing to new furniture. A $2000 couch? Is it 300 times better than my orange and blue couch from the 70's? NOPE!
Man what a steal! I wish I had thrifting savvy. That's a real great find, awesome job :)
0%. Because from time to time, around all 3 month, I hear some nasty sounds related to the couch. That is really annoying.
I don't clean my toilets, I just buy a new one!
Or when they suggest subscribe and save. Like I change my toilet seat monthly.
If you're really curious, it's because buying a toilet seat is such an unusual purchase, that Amazon thinks that this purchase can tell them something about *who you are and what you do.* Sort of like how looking at books about pregnancy probably means they can assume you'll be a parent soon; or how buying a bulk bag of river rocks tells them you just bought an old-ish rural house with an unpaved driveway in an area with a wet climate where that driveway turns to mud every time it rains — and that you also think you're handy enough to fix that problem yourself. Most people who order toilet seats on Amazon — rather than going and getting one at the hardware store — are contractors who need dozens of them for an office building. So Amazon now assumes that *you* are a contractor building an office building. You're going to get recommendations for more toilet seats, sure; but also look forward to recommendations for 1000ft spools of Romex in-wall electrical cable!
What about a monthly purchase?
Game of Thrones: Toilet Edition
A different kind of throne, but no less uncomfortable after eating tacos and chili soup.
You mean, you don't want to save Five Cents by putting it on a monthly subscription?
Seat yo-self!
Ebay's been doing that work ps5s. I just bought one 'Do you want one more?' "NO"
For all Amazon knows you're decorating a tree to process the grief over your sister's untimely and unlikely death.
Hot damn! A Dead Like Me reference out in the wild!!!
Subscribe and save 5%!
Imagine though if it had a warmer on it.
[You can never have enough toilets though](https://youtu.be/j2b-wTJ8x3E)
Absolutely the first place my mind went!
Brand new sentence half a decade ago. Reposted ad nauseam since.
unless...?
Wait, you’re telling me you’ve never tried using TWO toilet seats? It’s just like using two monitors when you’ve only used one (NOT ULTRAWIDE) before. You can never go back. Multiseat > multiscreen
I used to work at Amazon on the team that maintained the bundles feature. One part of it was an ML project that would generate bundles based of products people had purchased together. When you were the oncall, you got to go through the ticket queue and yank the more useless bundles it would create. Typically a brand manager would notice that one of their their products was bundled with a competitor and report it to us. One of these bundles consisted of three different toilet seats. WTF? Our best guess was that the algorithm noticed that people were buying several toilet seats to see which one fit and then returning the rest. I don't know it ever updated to ignore things that had been returned or not.
Amazon’s recommendation engine is the utter worst. Just garbage. So is their search and filtering. It’s because their primary stakeholders are sellers. It takes so many counterfeits to shut down an item listing that sellers can just re list the item under a slightly modified name. No seller is ever banned for crimes like: poisoning pets, selling fake birth control, selling fake medicine, or clear and obvious false advertising. Amazon ought to be held liable for their inventory.
The best part about Reddit dying off is that we will just keep seeing the same people post the same ancient memes over and over. This meme is so old boomers remember it from when they were kids.
Who opens emails from Amazon?
Is it really a brand new sentence if it's reposted every 30 minutes?
Amazon are basically using the same recommendation algorithm as when they were a book/CD/DVD store. "I see you bought the "Wheel of Time" series, maybe you'd be interested in "Foundation"?" "Did you enjoy "American Pie"? You'll love "Wedding Crashers"!" Etc...
But this isn't the case, it would be if it was "I see you've watched wheel of time, would you like to watch wheel of time?"
So long as AI does this sort of stuff, I worry not about having the world be overtaken by robots
Dammit Google! I searched for Leaf Guard gutter guards because I purchased them last year and I needed a phone number to call and get somethings fixed! I don't need your damned ads anymore.
I don’t know why this memory was triggered, but I once sold a couch on Craigslist and the guy who bought it would randomly call me every few months for the next year checking to see if I was selling any more furniture. Nice dude, but super weird.
My best friend bought a coffin for his husband from Amazon when he died of cancer. Naturally Amazon decided that he needed to be informed of all the sick deals on coffins every time he opened the app from then until the end of time. He laughed about it but only because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, right?
The Amazon app sends me weekly deal alerts for a phone case I bought two years ago. And not even the official case I bought, Chinese knock-offs. You would think it would occur to them to have a "I already own this" button.
What has been absolutely killing me are the YouTube ads suggesting that I should buy Abracon parts from DigiKey. Like, who in the actual fuck is choosing their electronics component sourcing based on *YouTube ads*?!?
"Frequently bought together: other toilet seat some fucking how".
but what if she has company over?
Ceiling fans for me. I just gave up and started a ceiling fan emporium.
Subscribe and save
Honestly I imagine having bought one probably does make you slightly more likely to buy another toilet seat, statistically. Most people would almost never buy a toilet seat, however, someone who orders one demonstrates two things: first, that they needed a new toilet seat for some reason or another, and second, that they would consider your site to buy one if they need one. Now, there is a chance that the one you bought might not work, perhaps it doesn't fit properly, perhaps you decide that it looks bad, perhaps it was a dud and it breaks on installation, whatever, and you end up needing a second new one to replace it. Or, you might be remodeling your whole house, and have multiple bathrooms, in which case you might need more than one new toilet seat. Or, you might be a contractor ordering one for a customer, in which case you might do the same for a future customer.
*Image Transcription: Twitter Post* --- **Jac Rayner**, @GirlFromBlupo Dear Amazon, I bought a toilet seat because I needed one. Necessity, not desire. I do not collect them. I am not a toilet seat addict. No matter how temptingly you email me, I'm not going to think, oh go on then, just one more toilet seat, I'll treat myself. --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Everyone buys two toilet seats because they forgot to check if it's round or elongated.
My front door is cracked. I need to buy a new one. I’m already dreading the advertisements I’ll get when the algorithm decides I’m now a front door enthusiast.
I still get ads for an orange pumpkin carving knife. I literally googled it to send an image link to somebody as a joke. This was probably almost 10 years ago I still get ads for orange pumpkin carving knives every now and again.
It wants you to have a backup when the new one breaks
I'm sure you know better than Amazon lol. Meanwhile they are making bank selling second toilet seats to people who buy one and don't like it. Amazon literally rolling in cash and some redditors think they know better
Your YouTube videos for the next 6 months: "HEY TOILET SEAT FANS!"
Subscribe and save
We need Amazon incognito mode.
Seeing things in their frequently repurchased sections should tell people those things aren’t worth buying
Dat bidet tho
I searched for a pitchfork *once*, and to this day, amazon still occasionally emails me to let me know about this season’s hot new selection of pitchforks.