<story><title>“Amazon’s Choice” is determined by an algorithm and not always reliable</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazons-choice-bad-products</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>YokoZar</author><text>I was actually surprised when I learned this.  The biggest complaint about Amazon had been a lack of curation and all that entails -- foot long brooms that photograph well, brands you&amp;#x27;ve never heard of, cheap things that break quickly, counterfeits, etc.  It feels like an online dollar store, even when you&amp;#x27;re spending thousands.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t take that much effort to have a human in the loop to pick something for the top thousand or so product categories, and naively that&amp;#x27;s what I expected when I saw the &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; seal of approval on these things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeash</author><text>It’s obvious that people will interpret “Amazon’s Choice” in this way. Surely Amazon knew this too. This should be considered false advertising if not outright fraud. Instead it’ll just turn into another episode of “haha those wacky tech companies and their algorithms.”</text></comment>
<story><title>“Amazon’s Choice” is determined by an algorithm and not always reliable</title><url>https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nicolenguyen/amazons-choice-bad-products</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>YokoZar</author><text>I was actually surprised when I learned this.  The biggest complaint about Amazon had been a lack of curation and all that entails -- foot long brooms that photograph well, brands you&amp;#x27;ve never heard of, cheap things that break quickly, counterfeits, etc.  It feels like an online dollar store, even when you&amp;#x27;re spending thousands.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t take that much effort to have a human in the loop to pick something for the top thousand or so product categories, and naively that&amp;#x27;s what I expected when I saw the &amp;quot;Amazon&amp;#x27;s Choice&amp;quot; seal of approval on these things.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oftenwrong</author><text>As mentioned in the article, Amazon does have &amp;quot;Editorial recommendations&amp;quot; that appear for certain queries, which are basically buying guides written by third parties. They can apply titles to products, like &amp;quot;Editors&amp;#x27; Choice&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Best Value&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Our Pick&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Top Choice&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Upgrade Pick&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;Splurge-worthy&amp;quot;, et cetera.</text></comment>