David Gaughran blog post regarding the current situation w/Amazon also-boughts

[CoraBuhlert]

I've also seen traditionally published books in AMS ads. Just lately I saw Martha Wells' latest Murderbot book in the ad slider for some other science fiction book. I've also seen a Lee Child book at one point. Though it only seems to be the big names.

As for non-Americans not being able to see the also-boughts at Amazon.com, that certainly sucks for me. For though I'm in Germany and buy from Amazon.de, I browse at Amazon.com. Because I read mainly in English and the English language books at the German Amazon store often don't have also-boughts that are particularly relevant (e.g. every other book had Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in its also-boughts for a while) or maybe have none at all. So even if I don't buy at Amazon.com, seeing the also-boughts at Amazon.com help me find books to buy and read at my local Amazon store.

So in short, this sucks, whether as an author or a reader. And like Ann said, recommendation e-mails haven't been useful to me for a long time now. Because I don't want to buy East Friesian mysteries, no matter how often Amazon recommends them to me.                                                                       

[angela]

I declare this fall Alsobotmageddon.

[dgcasey]

I declare this fall Alsobotmageddon.

I don't know why, but this brought to mind the Doctor Who episode where Craig's baby told the Doctor he preferred to be called, "Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All."

 

[sliderule]

No, for me this isn't about my books. Definitely not.

It's about being a reader for me.

Yes, me too, although if I (as a reader) can't find anything to read without ABs, then there must be readers not able to find my books, so it works both ways.

For those who want to get their ABs back, you can do it by logging out of your Amazon account. Once you're anonymous and Amazon doesn't know what country you're in, the ABs reappear. No VPN or proxy needed.

Another reader chiming in here.

I have borrowed/bought less books in the last couple of months than previous months. All because I couldn't find anything that caught my eye on a moment's notice. That's because I depended on the alsoboughts to browse the store.

That's what they want, right? For us to stay and shop?

If you're going to make me work for it, I will only if I'm in the mood. When I'm not, I go elsewhere. So if Amazon is okay with losing business to those like me, I'm okay with it, too.

tl;dr alsoboughts kept me in the amazon environment longer to make more purchases. no alsobots, less time spent spending money.

[Ros]

I think the big losers will be newer authors. Because even if that also-bought information is available for other recommendation routes, it won't be created anew without that initial discovery. So it will be slightly easier for those who already have that data established through sales, and harder for the newly published.