This link is about how Amazon collects data on everyone that interacts with their site, whether it's to buy books and publish your novel . . . or whether it's something totally unrelated to writers. If you're interacting with Amazon, they're collecting data on you. Even if you're not bothered by what they're doing, this article is well worth a read.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/27/the-data-game-what-amazon-knows-about-you-and-how-to-stop-it
None of this is new information. It's why the valuation was so high and Bezos never had to show an actual profit for so long. Amazon's value was never in its balance sheets, it was always in the customer information they accumulated. Just like Facebook, Google, and to a lesser extent, Apple.
Every time this comes up, I am genuinely surprised because there is absolutely no way on God's green earth that Kindle Unlimited is profitable for Amazon. None. In fact, I would go as far as saying KDP as a department isn't profitable. The man-hours involved in running it make it nearly impossible for Amazon to have any kind of balance sheet that would say their ROI was decent. I would be surprised if the ROI was even close to the best practices range (and despite several "publishing gurus" telling you that any profit is good, most businesses wouldn't think of continuing to run a marketing campaign that's not bringing back a 5:1 return).
So, let's assuming that Amazon looks at KDP as en extension of their CRM (which it kind of is, but it's also probably the closest approximation of how Amazon would expect KDP to perform). A few years ago, CRM was closer to marketing, 5:1, now it's nearer to 8:1. That means for every dollar spent, Amazon expects to make $8. Again, there's just no way KU or book sales are showing an 8:1 ratio. They have to make that money up elsewhere. Customer data which increases their valuation.
Early investors in Amazon knew the data Amazon gathered on its customers was worth its weight in Californium. Amazon isn't worth $3000/share, but the data it has on all its customers is worth ten times that much, as long as they can continue to monetize it. Every "new gadget" that comes from Amazon is yet another way to gather even more data. Between Alexa, Prime, KU, the Amazon store, Audible, and Music (not to mention everything else they've acquired over the years) the data continues to grow.
