Commandment of Control: Violations to Learn From...

[nothingness]

Really early on in my life I was doing the Adsense mini site thing except I did it properly (and therefore lasted a lot longer than most) and still Google deleted my accounts one day completely randomly, no reason given, no opportunity to change anything and continue. I was making tons of money and therefore so was Google, but they didn't care. I never understood the logic behind it (other than corporations not liking anyone else making money) and never partnered with Google every again for anything. Then a decade later it happened again with KDP when they changed all the rules again.

The problem is in 2022 these corporations are so big and they have successfully brainwashed people into thinking if you're not on their platforms you are a scammer, so you almost have to depend on them to get eyeballs.

 

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[MitchC]

I was just listening to a podcast and the guy shared the most insane Amazon F*cking someone over and stealing their business story I’ve ever heard.

This guy found a product that had a cheap version and an expensive version but no middle version, so he made the middle version brand. He developed the product with the factory and sold it on Amazon. I think he was selling $1.2m a month or a year of this on Amazon I forget.

And then Amazon bought his factory and stopped selling to him. He paid to and worked with this factory to develop this product and Amazon just bought the entire factory and stole the product from him and refused to sell it to him.

I’ve heard of them taking winning products and stealing the buy box and selling the product as Amazon basics, but buying the entire factory??

Amazon is evil. We need to do everything we can to stop giving as much of our money to these evil companies as we can.

I’m all for free market capitalism and competition but what the F*ck man, how can you compete with that. The more money and power we give them, the worse it’s going to get.

Support small local businesses and help these people out who are having a go working hard trying to free themselves from the rat race, instead of supporting bezos plan to take over the entire world and crush any business worth owning.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I was just listening to a podcast and the guy shared the most insane Amazon f*cking someone over and stealing their business story I’ve ever heard.

This guy found a product that had a cheap version and an expensive version but no middle version, so he made the middle version brand. He developed the product with the factory and sold it on Amazon. I think he was selling $1.2m a month or a year of this on Amazon I forget.

And then Amazon bought his factory and stopped selling to him. He paid to and worked with this factory to develop this product and Amazon just bought the entire factory and stole the product from him and refused to sell it to him.

I’ve heard of them taking winning products and stealing the buy box and selling the product as Amazon basics, but buying the entire factory??

Amazon is evil. We need to do everything we can to stop giving as much of our money to these evil companies as we can.

I’m all for free market capitalism and competition but what the f*ck man, how can you compete with that. The more money and power we give them, the worse it’s going to get.

Support small local businesses and help these people out who are having a go working hard trying to free themselves from the rat race, instead of supporting bezos plan to take over the entire world and crush any business worth owning.

I copied this here as a cautionary tale as it relates to the Commandment of Control.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Instagram takes on Linktree and others with support for up to 5 'links in bio' | TechCrunch

Today, Instagram is rolling out a new feature for adding links to user profiles that challenges Linktree, Beacons and numerous other "link in bio" solution providers.

techcrunch.com

Imagine having good success and immediately your business's primary value skew is null and void, simply because a mega-corporation changes a simple function. Hopefully the founders of these companies already made bank, and can pivot or move on.

You've been warned since 2007.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Via the Bootstrapped Founder newsletter (affiliate link embedded)

For the full interview...

Tony Dinh — Ups and Downs of an Indie Hacker Journey

Arvid Kahl 0:00 Welcome to The Bootstrapped Founder. Tony Dinh is a prolific indie hacker and I’m talking to him today. I’ve been following Tony’s journey building and designing products in public …

thebootstrappedfounder.com

 

[TheFrancophile]

I agree wholeheartedly with MitchC. Amazon is evil and must be stopped.

But the problem isn't just that they bought someone's factory and stopped selling to a product developer. The problem is that when you sell on the AMZ marketplace, AMZ controls 100% of your sales and can simply delete your listings or close your account and ban you for no good reason.

These days, AMZ customers frequently abuse the A to Z guarantee vis-à-vis Third Party Sellers. French, Italian, and Spanish customers are particularly adept at this. Here's how they operate:

1) They decide they want some product and order it from you.
2) You ship it in a tracked parcel/envelope.
3) The shipping company/postal service delivers the product and gives you Proof of Delivery.
4) The customer receives the product, then files a fraudulent A to Z guarantee claim against you, demanding a complete refund.
5) Amazon AUTOMATICALLY upholds the claim and charges your credit/debit card (if you block them, they block your access to your AMZ marketplace account).

And voilà! An AMZ customer can thus have a product for FREE, at YOUR EXPENSE, and AMZ allows this.

And if you have too many customer claims (even unjust ones) against you, AMZ can shut your account down.

The author of this thread clearly doesn't have the faintest clue of what he's talking about. If you sell ANYTHING on Amazon, you are at their mercy. Period.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

The author of this thread clearly doesn't have the faintest clue of what he's talking about. If you sell ANYTHING on Amazon, you are at their mercy. Period.

Yup, as the author of the Control Commandment I warned about nearly 20 years ago during a time when "platform risk" was unheard of, I don't got the faintest clue... even though you essentially agree with me. SMH.

 

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[TheFrancophile]

Yup, as the author of the Control Commandment I warned about nearly 20 years ago during a time when "platform risk" was unheard of, I don't got the faintest clue... even though you essentially agree with me. SMH.

Sorry, MJ, I didn't mean you, I meant the guy who authored another thread about the Commandment of Control and claimed he was "a shark swimming in the Amazon ocean".

I replied to the wrong thread about the same topic. Sorry.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Here's a Masterclass in the Commandment of Control with a 9-figure penalty.

And just think, I wrote about this 13 years ago and now stuff like this finally makes headlines.

https://www.inc.com/magazine/202311/issie-lapowsky/facebook-gave-his-company-hyper-growth-and-then-killed-it-just-as-fast.html