[bladewolf47]

Not sure if it fits with what the poster you replied to was saying but I find it a bit curious when I buy say a guitar on Amazon and my recommendations (emails or ads in other sites) over the next few days are still guitars. I do not remember seeing one of those promotions which follow a purchase being about accessories or add-ons.

[snowwrestler]

No automated recommendation system is going to be perfect; it’s either going to over-recommend or under-recommend. From the way the Amazon system works, we can infer that they have decided that missing to the over-recommend side is a better business strategy than missing under.

And it kind of makes sense if you think about it... really, what are the consequences of seeing these silly over-recommendations? Did you stop buying from Amazon? I bet the vast majority of people shrug or laugh, but don’t change habits.

Also, big one-time purchases tend to be rare, so optimizing a recommendation system around those is probably suboptimal compared to optimizing it around frequent consumable purchases.

[another-dave]

> I bet the vast majority of people shrug or laugh, but don’t change habits.

Or you tell all your friends about it and end up having a conversation about guitars/dishwashers or whatever.

It may not be intentional on their part, but spin off conversations can be a nice by-product for them. Feels like it helps it stick in the mind, a bit like writing a witty TV ad.

[bladewolf47]

I can see what you are saying, the downside is pretty much nil. And it seems like people do buy more guitars than just one. I'm currently just entering this phase where I just now stopped regretting the purchase because I couldn't play any music out of it initially. :)

[SyzygistSix]

I think guitars are like bicycles where the optimal number to have is n+1 where n = the number you currently own.

[vbsteven]

Unless you are married or in a committed relationship, then it becomes n-1 where n = the number at which your significant other leaves you.

[metafunctor]

I dunno, I’ve bought several guitars in a row…

[scruple]

Well I've had it happen with toilet seats. In 40 years on this planet I've only ever needed to purchase that one. I'd imagine if I needed to get more than one that I would get them all at the same time.

[cperciva]

There's probably a nontrivial number of people who renovate houses one bathroom at a time.

[scruple]

I'm sure there are. I'm also sure, having been around house flippers (my brother flipped for a while, my MIL flipped for a while) and reno (my parents, my MIL, and my wife when we were dating) a few times in my life, that they don't buy them through Amazon/online.

[pbhjpbhj]

That's the sort of thing you buy a new one because one broke and now it shows up how tatty (worn, old, messy) the other one(s) in your house are. Or someone asks where you got it ... "oh, I can't remember but Google ads showed me the same one of available at $diy_store", or whatever.

[bopbeepboop]

Its a math mistake on Amazons part.

They’ve conflated “most purchases of a toilet seat are made by someone who buys another” and “most people who buy one toilet seat buy a second”.

There’s a small, but high volume group of toilet seat purchases — eg, office buildings or apartment maintenance.

[codemusings]

Preach.