[the-pigeon]

It wouldn't surprise me if this was a goal but they should really figure out basic recommendations first.

I just bought a power washer. I bought it on Amazon. Amazon easily knows I now own a power washer. And yet Amazon is giving me a ton of recommendations for power washers.

This is a constant problem with recommendations and everyone I know has the same experience.

And unless there's some sort of data regulation preventing them from applying my purchase history to their recommendations it's ridiculously easy to fix. Tag item categories as "1 per household over x months" and when someone purchase amount goes beyond the threshold stop recommending products from that category until x months has passed.

[ghaff]

It seems to be a general problem with recommendation engines.

I assume that manually tagging certain types of items with a flag that means "The buyer is unlikely to buy another item in this category within a meaningful timeframe no matter how often we recommend it" is more effort than the recommendation slot is worth. There are probably a number of flags one could imagine setting but it's likely very hard to automate because it requires understanding how people use/consume/upgrade/etc. a given item.

[badwolf]

Same with vacuum cleaners. How many does Amazon really think I need in my 1 bedroom, hardwood floor apartment.

[pc86]

Just one more, man.

[ponker]

Do you seriously think that Amazon never thought of not showing you a second power washer? The data must show that this is more profitable than the alternatives.

[bussierem]

I have Google advertising to me, on my Pixel 3a using Google Fi, in my Gmail app, telling me about how I should sign up for Google Fi.

I have a pretty good hunch that these companies often do stupid stuff like this.

[ghaff]

And Verizon is constantly mailing me to switch to FIOS. And when I look on their site to look up FIOS availability, it's not actually available.

For some reason, both Comcast and Verizon also have my address as a variant on my real postal service address that hasn't been true since before I moved here over 20 years ago.