There are two types of recommendations I get from Amazon though. The first is ads I see on sites like Facebook and are things I would never look up, but I'm also curious if that is part of their strategy. I get ads on facebook for things like a unicycle that is motorized and can go like 35mph. Half the time I end up clicking on these insane ads just to read reviews or the description.
The on site recommendations work very well for me though (they know I love woodworking and Cooking/Kitchen stuff).
I'm curious if the outrageous ads are to get you on site, then the targeted on-site ads are to actually get you to buy things?
But that's not really where the data benefits them. The power is in aggregate data: Product sales history, trends, etc.. The things you can do with that kind data, in that volume, across nearly endless markets and verticals... Throw in an army of third party sellers paying you while they do your research and power your analytics for you for free: The real mystery is that they're not eating the internet retail industry faster.
If you look at google search results it seems more obvious that at least this is what G is interested in doing.
Did not get the job. Which means they might be quite comfortable with the status quo.
Nah. Things like search would be better if they were hiding competence.