- @tgallen
Liking this article and this sentence in particular...
Maybe the story of Angelmamii7 is not one woman and her family trying to hit the jackpot by doing what even they do not understand but a whole culture responding to incentives we can’t articulate but are being trained to follow, moment to moment, by a dopamine-drip system we carry in our pockets
An interesting article that I am glad is getting attention..
From my own experience, I just bought a pencil for my Apple iPad that appears it was from a third-party seller. While the pencil seems to work well (so far) and is perhaps comparable to the more expensive Apple product, I was a bit troubled with what also came with it: included in the packaging was a small card that at first glance, looked like a gift card from Amazon. On the back of this card were printed directions from the seller promising a real $20 gift card from Amazon in return for a positive review of the product I just purchased…I believe the directions even suggested wording I could use in my review and a way to verify that it was completed
I can honestly say that I did not write any such review for the product and do not intend to unless I feel it is deserved. I was not enticed by a gift card, but I do know of others around me that would have been. This made me reconsider my purchasing habits on Amazon…especially since I know that I looked at those reviews when I purchased the product thinking they were from legitimate customers happy with the product, certainly not consumers enticed with bribery of a $20 gift certificate
I don’t know if anyone else has had similar experiences but the notion of disregarding reviews from this article resonated with me, and I hope it resonates with other readers too.
It left me wondering if I should report the seller to Amazon, but then again, the product seems to work. Is my own experience just an ambitious third-party seller trying to save consumers money and prosper in a cut throat market, , or is the gift-card-as-bribery model unfairly overstepping? Are there enough people who are savvy and like-minded to disregarded it as a ploy? I guess it’s never just black-and-white, is it?
This experience and reading this article made me realize just how “taken” all of us can be when it comes to consumerism without integrity or regulations.