Folks -
As an "Invertebrate Amazon Abuser.." or at least this is what my partner says, although she often omits the river - I understand just how spoiled we have become by their apparently obsessive attention to service and delivery - which from the consumer's view is often pretty unbeatable.
But, they are a VERY different entity than Massdrop - do not forget, that for Amazon, we are a digitally productized income stream of significant value. Yeah - you, your eyeballs, your clicks, and your purchases are a bulk commodity in the marketing data stream that they sell for profit.
This isn't a Bad Thing, Amazon does reinvest this income into warehousing, shipping, and cataloging a staggering number of products - some of which I am delighted to greedily snarf up.
So why waste your time with Massdrop?
Because they are VERY different from Amazon - Massdrop is crowd-sourced, not Big Data Driven - we, the individual user/consumers determine what products are offered and at what price they end up being sold for. Essentially, this site is acting as our buying agent, customs/shipping factor, and order fulfilment center - but we users are actually creating Massdrop's catalog on the fly.
The good news is that this model can dig out some extremely interesting and esoteric stuff - things that fall way below the Amazon Radar or don't fit into their business ecology - as evidenced by the very passionate and active Audiophile, Keyboard, and Quilting (Quilting?? !!) communities on this site who've apparently really like this business collective.
The bad news is that all 'drops' are basically done 'Ad Hoc' - on the fly, unscheduled, and created from whole cloth - so, when the structure works, it's pretty damn cool - but when there's a fart in Customs, or the supplier poohs up, or God drops a trillion gallons of water on your state & your ark doesn't start - it all goes pear-shaped until things can be individually sorted out.
So, the moral is - if you want what Amazon has, go there - they're awfully good at what they do.
If you like Massdrop's stuff, and can deal with some irregular funkiness - stick around - but remember, you are part of the crowd - the cool stuff that comes out is directly proportional to the energy that you put in ...
Cheers
Jim
As an "Invertebrate Amazon Abuser.." or at least this is what my partner says, although she often omits the river - I understand just how spoiled we have become by their apparently obsessive attention to service and delivery - which from the consumer's view is often pretty unbeatable.
But, they are a VERY different entity than Massdrop - do not forget, that for Amazon, we are a digitally productized income stream of significant value. Yeah - you, your eyeballs, your clicks, and your purchases are a bulk commodity in the marketing data stream that they sell for profit.
This isn't a Bad Thing, Amazon does reinvest this income into warehousing, shipping, and cataloging a staggering number of products - some of which I am delighted to greedily snarf up.
So why waste your time with Massdrop?
Because they are VERY different from Amazon - Massdrop is crowd-sourced, not Big Data Driven - we, the individual user/consumers determine what products are offered and at what price they end up being sold for. Essentially, this site is acting as our buying agent, customs/shipping factor, and order fulfilment center - but we users are actually creating Massdrop's catalog on the fly.
The good news is that this model can dig out some extremely interesting and esoteric stuff - things that fall way below the Amazon Radar or don't fit into their business ecology - as evidenced by the very passionate and active Audiophile, Keyboard, and Quilting (Quilting?? !!) communities on this site who've apparently really like this business collective.
The bad news is that all 'drops' are basically done 'Ad Hoc' - on the fly, unscheduled, and created from whole cloth - so, when the structure works, it's pretty damn cool - but when there's a fart in Customs, or the supplier poohs up, or God drops a trillion gallons of water on your state & your ark doesn't start - it all goes pear-shaped until things can be individually sorted out.
So, the moral is - if you want what Amazon has, go there - they're awfully good at what they do.
If you like Massdrop's stuff, and can deal with some irregular funkiness - stick around - but remember, you are part of the crowd - the cool stuff that comes out is directly proportional to the energy that you put in ...
Cheers
Jim