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by trowawee 3776 days ago
Amazon is the worst about this. "You just bought an ITEM_X, clearly you want to buy ITEM_X_CLONE as well." So stupid.
4 comments

Try the "this was a gift" checkbox in order history. I've been hesitant to share this as I don't want it to stop working, but it's magic for me. Allows you to select what you want ads for in the future.
Yeah, the algorithm behind that is insanely stupid for a company with so many technical resources. No, Amazon, I don't want to buy three more $1,300 SLR cameras.
I think that's why I find it particularly inexcusable. No company pulling in that much money, with that kind of tech muscle, should have a recommendation system that poor.
Once in awhile it will reanimate old purchases too.

I took a class in college many years ago to meet a diversity requirement that involved reading a bunch of books about gay Latinos. I'm neither gay nor Latino, but something refreshes that connection -- every couple of years they decide to hit me up with books on the topic, including books that I bought for the class.

Maybe their algorithms is trying to any nostalgia you might be having for some old topic? In your case they figured wrong, but I can see how it could work for old games, movies, music, tv shows, etc.
It's the worst when ITEM_X is a large TV. I wonder what percentage of TV buyers will impulse-buy a second TV because of "you might also like.." recommendations. Can't they make a list of products compatible with my TV and sell me that?
I'm sure they could. I certainly got an email from them a few weeks after buying a camera offering me accessories for it.