WTF, Amazon.
Amazon is stripping the sales ranks from certain books deemed to hold "adult content", in effect making them impossible to find in some searches and removing them from Amazon's "best seller" lists. A large part of the books in question contain gay and lesbian, transgender, polyamory, bdsm or other such non-mainstream themes; in other words, it seems to be the classic censorship for the "benefit" of the tender minds of children/women/insert-group-meant-to-be-kept-in-blissful-ignorance-here.
Stewardess has an informative overview-and-speculation post here, including some info about the import of the sales ranking feature.
Weirdly, I have a vague but definite feeling of personal disappointment - the feeling that Amazon is personally letting me down. I've bought so many books from Amazon over the years that somehow, I seem to have developed a strange sense of affinity and affection. (Amazon was, in fact, the main reason I first became interested in the internet, four score and seven years ago. I had heard rumors of a way to get books in a matter of *days* that I had long been used to ordering from a catalog in a bookstore, going merely by name and author with no description of contents at all, and that would then take months and months to arrive. Or not.)
Oh Amazon, my fast, convenient, reliable and ever-present procurer of reading material of all kinds! Books at the push of a button, delivered right to my door for no extra charge... yeah, I might have fallen a little bit in love with you there, Amazon.
Not feeling the love right now, buddy. Methinks I will be getting better acquainted with some other alluring procurers of books in the future.
Stewardess has an informative overview-and-speculation post here, including some info about the import of the sales ranking feature.
Weirdly, I have a vague but definite feeling of personal disappointment - the feeling that Amazon is personally letting me down. I've bought so many books from Amazon over the years that somehow, I seem to have developed a strange sense of affinity and affection. (Amazon was, in fact, the main reason I first became interested in the internet, four score and seven years ago. I had heard rumors of a way to get books in a matter of *days* that I had long been used to ordering from a catalog in a bookstore, going merely by name and author with no description of contents at all, and that would then take months and months to arrive. Or not.)
Oh Amazon, my fast, convenient, reliable and ever-present procurer of reading material of all kinds! Books at the push of a button, delivered right to my door for no extra charge... yeah, I might have fallen a little bit in love with you there, Amazon.
Not feeling the love right now, buddy. Methinks I will be getting better acquainted with some other alluring procurers of books in the future.