The reason I miss the old “recommended for you” paginated, categorized list is that your new tag-tile system constantly throws up nonsense like this:

Bottom line, the behavior that your new tile system encourages is anti-browsing: if the picture on a tile isn’t something that I want, I won’t click on that category at all. For now, it’s still possible to get the old list view for new and upcoming releases, which you don’t (usually) have a tile for, but the URLs aren’t visible on the site any more.

I should also point out that the tile system makes it much harder to improve recommendations. Old and busted: for each item, click “I own it” or “Not interested”. New hotness:

1. click a tile
2. click “View All & Manage”
3. click “Edit Recommendations”
4. click “Remove” on an item
5. click either “I already own this item” or “I’m not interested in this item”
6. wait for the thumbnail image to load, because your next click might not register when the layout changes
7. click “Ok”.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 for each item from that tile, then scroll back to the top and click “Yournamehere’s Amazon” to get back to the tag-tiles screen.

This, in a word, is bullshit.

Once upon a time, there was an actual “things you’ve marked ‘not interested’” list that could be added to, and even edited (unless, like me, yours had more than 20,000 items on it).

Now, however, your recommendation system has no memory at all. How else can I explain being offered the exact same items that I select “I’m not interested in this item” for every damn day? No, I do not want a Funko figure of Nearly-Headless Nick, and I won’t change my mind when you ask me again tomorrow. No, I do not want to read book 6 of an isekai series about a slime. No, I don’t want a Funko figure of Inigo Montoya, because I already bought the damn thing last week!

Seriously, of the 50 items in the “New Releases” you just offered me, I’ve already rejected 42 of them, some of them half a dozen times. If the buttons don’t do anything any more, just remove them and stop pretending you’re paying attention to my preferences. And understand that you’re selling less stuff to me because you’re not showing me products I might actually want.

So, I stumbled across the link that takes you to the old Items you’ve marked “Not interested” page, and by golly, my 50,000+ entries are still there, and are still being updated with new entries.

You’re just not using them to filter items from the current “Recommended for you” tiles.

In fairness, there’s a bit of load associated with slurping in 50,000+ ASIDs every time I visit the site, but you could at least use the most recent 100, and either make it possible to bulk-edit the list or simply wipe it. The old recommendation used to be “create a new Amazon account”, but that’s not practical now, with Prime, Kindle, FireTV, etc.

I wasn’t aware that “self-help” included shibari, but this wouldn’t be the first time your recommendations got a bit kinky…

What do you people do to your dogs?

Even if this were being used metaphorically, I’d still have to call fail on filing “Ninja Skills” as a self-help book:

In related news, Steven Turnbull has disowned his earlier gullibilityshallow scholarship on the subject and written a new book that straightens out the mix of history, pulp fiction, and wishful thinking that created the myth of Ancient Ninja Secrets. Good stuff.

Clearly my recent search for cotton rope has led you down a dark path…

NSFW

Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?