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Comment by hexis | Hacker News Reader

I have to completely disagree. Amazon.com is a store, not wikipedia, and price is a hugely important factor. If folks are unhappy with the pricing on amazon.com, then amazon.com is exactly the right place for it. In particular, if folks are unhappy with the pricing of a particular item, then the review section for that item is precisely the right place to complain. They are reviewing a product that is being offered for sale. Price is crucial and relevant.

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Price is relevant in terms of the product value. If you buy a $1000 set of tupperware from Amazon, and they melt in the dishwasher, by all means, give the product a low rating because the item's performance does not justify it's price.

These book reviews are different, though. People are giving 1 star reviews without having read the book, because they don't agree with the price. They are giving 1 star reviews for books that are not available on Kindle. They are not qualified to review the item because they have not used it. Whether or not the complaints are valid, the review section is the wrong venue for voicing them.

I agree, something might be a great deal for one price and totally unacceptable at another - price matters.

Of course, Amazon is partially at fault for combining different editions in the reviews.

I have been annoyed at how hard it is to compare different editions of computer books, for example, to decide whether to buy a newer edition or not.

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