On: The Power of Ridiculous Reasons

[ShabbyDoo]

This is the book referenced (no referral fee links, btw):

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Busine...

I've read it and even bought a second copy to lend out. It's that good.

[weaksauce → ShabbyDoo]

I am still trying to figure out why people dislike affiliate links like these(if you were to put one in) It costs the person buying the book nothing and the person providing the link did some work to find the product and link to it thereby making my life easier. I am all for free and making my life easier.

The only reason that I can think of is that it detracts from the strength of the recommendation because of monetary concerns but since this is not the original person recommending it that should not matter.

Am I completely off on this one?

[bemmu → weaksauce]

It raises (founded or unfounded) suspicion that the recommendation is not genuine, but was only offered to collect the affiliate fee.

[fauigerzigerk → bemmu]

True, but I'm more interested in a link being genuinely useful than in knowing whether the motivation for providing it is genuinely altruistic.

[andreyf → fauigerzigerk]

If you consider all of the non-affiliate links to Amazon and all of the affiliate links to Amazon, I would hypothesize that more of the former are "genuinely useful" for their audience than the latter.

[fauigerzigerk → andreyf]

I agree with that. But the real question is if there were no affiliate links, would there be more or fewer useful links overall? It may be that money is an incentive to dig up useful links that nobody would provide otherwise.

[coryrc → weaksauce]

It also provides the incentive to spam the link more often than you would without the money.