“The expansion of API usage in marketplaces means:
Version 1) Any PhD with an idea can create a startup to add value to a marketplace.
Version 2) Any idiot with an questionable algorithm can screw things up for everyone.
“Failure to account for boundary conditions will screw up a good model in a hurry.”
Marshall Kirkpatrick writes about how a poorly-written algorithm for bot selling used books on Amazon may be pricing otherwise unremarkable books for millions (and even tens of millions) of dollars.
It’s pretty funny (apart from the book’s title, the kicker to the $7,534,585.41 price tag for How to Survive Personal Bankruptcy is the $3.99 shipping cost)… but it also raises some disturbing questions.
As more and more of our commerce moves online, into sites with sophisticated APIs, there’s a growing incentive to make a quick buck with automated arbitrage. And we can expect to weird little artifacts like this quickly changing from the occasional amusing glitch to an ongoing annoyance – possibly to the point where they throw the survival of those markets into question.
In the meantime, if you have $7.5 million to burn, and want to stave off personal bankruptcy, I do have an alternate suggestion for you.
