Amazon - My Two Cents? BOYCOTT! 11/20/2023

Hello,

After reading more posts and other's comments, this whole thing is really ...well.. let's just say I'm not happy, and yes, that is the "G-rated" version. In fact, this is a really horrendous thing to do to Affiliates - on extremely short notice - and right at Christmas and Hanukkah time.... Our biggest selling event of the year!

After contacting Amazon support, waiting, and reading their glib responses, it is QUITE clear that this will NOT be cleared up any time soon. My current PAAPI links are NOT working. I kept an old one, but generated a "new" one, and it's also not working. I have a mix of very old Native Ads on very old posts, and newer Site Stripe Text & Image Ads on various sites. Thinking back, after Amazon Affiliates were encouraged to use their "easy" tools, such as Native Ads, then, SiteStripe, we made the transition, sent Amazon a WHOLE LOT OF TRAFFIC, and made Amazon A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY.

So, yes, not only did they know they were going to pull this stunt, but this whole issue and immense problem was, imho, not only done on purpose, but the timing of it was also done on purpose. Think about it. Amazon had plenty of time to notify us of any potential changes. Online companies like this plan and get ready for changes months in advance especially plans that involve traffic and how they get it. They "could" have given us the heads up many many months ago in order to give us a better chance of updating our links and making sure our API credentials were working. But, to do this in mid-November, leave us without the use of images while purposely taking the traffic but not paying us... is just the lowest. Really. There are many many affiliates with multiple sites up and running, and they've worked hard at building these sites.... So, yes, it just really pis..s... me off... (oops... X-rated version)! Sorry, not sorry!

So, what's my point? Well, sure, "they" are saying the current links will still work until Dec 31st, but my API is not, and any computer programmer who's worth his or her salt knows that you don't abandon one without running a parrallel or a background program and making sure it all works. Further, their correspondence did not mention that the "qualifying" 3 sales were supposed to come from the API and not any of your other ads. THAT part is not too clear... So, I'm sitting here thinking there's no way I can get through ALL my sites and ALL my pages... and ALL my posts to fix them prior to Christmas using an API plug-in that may not even work. I have many many other things to do, and I'm being realistic.... I simply cannot work 24/7 to fix it all in time. So, why should I send traffic to Amazon for Christmas? ...I have decided I'd rather not.

If this is NOT resolved in the next week with some sort of Major Announcement, I'm breaking the remaining Amazon links that have not been converted to text only links, which, btw, makes my sites extremely booooorrring.... I can break them much quicker than fixing them, and besides, I'd much rather send Amazon a Christmas message: If I don't have a back-up API in place and actually verified as working, and I'm not getting paid, then Bozo is NOT getting my Christmas traffic. ..And that's my two cents.