Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Why do you think that? Amazon are under absolutely no obligation to have an affiliate programme at all. If they do have one, then clearly it has to be under terms that benefit them. They aren't a charity.
|
They are, however, very good at doing stupid things that piss off the internet. They have been, from the beginning, when they would randomly reset your account preferences to "spam the living shit out of me every day" (they did that to me at least three times before they finally figured out it was costing them business).
And they have a pretty good history in recent years of quickly backing down when they do something pisses people off.
As this has been reported, it's a very bad idea. I still suspect it won't really affect that many affiliates, but it's way too easy to view it as unfair to a lot of them, in that (as it has been explained so far) an affiliate can lose their income for the month for things beyond their control (follow a link to a regular item, then download a bunch of free stuff hours later). I'm not sure it's being reported accurately, or perceived accurately by those reporting it. This whole thing has the earmarks of the standard "internet crying hysterically over nothing" sort of meme. But Amazon's not helping, and clearly needs to get their shit together at the very highest levels. Until they do, they're going to continue to get handed their ass, and rightly so. Not for any policy change, but for the stupid way they've handled it.