this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Technology

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My title might be a bit hyperbolic, but stuff like this worries me. I love to read and I love reading on a kindle. This has been going on for a while, but it has now reached absurd levels.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's odd is that this isn't an especially new thing in terms of possibly. Maybe if they wanted some veneer of viability for like, a paragraph or two, but any reader is going to catch on to what's happening pretty fast.

The titles are still nonsense enough that even a simple Markov chain could have made them. So I think the main issue at play is whatever they're doing to exploit themselves to the top of the list.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is what I'm having trouble with: how are word salad books at the top of their "bestsellers" list - is anyone buying them? If someone is buying them, then are others buying them just because they appear on the bestseller list?
It doesn't pass the sniff test.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

My guess is that Amazon gives new books some visibility if they manage to score a dozen sales within a few days of release. So the author probably bought a few copies as soon as his listing appeared on the store. It's a very old tactic that plagues the best seller's list and Amazon is plagued by the same issue.