I think there's a bit of terminological confusion here.

First of all, you've switched from criticising GM for saying that traditional spammer marketing methods (one way, full noise, low brow, etc) don't work on the net, to now saying that it claims mass marketing of any sort can't work on the web.

This is a strawman I think, since that ain't what Mr Locke ever said. Indeed, what he said could perhaps be better paraphrased as "If you want to do mass marketing on the web, you'd better not do it the way you do it on TV or Radio."

Apropos of which I would note that neither Tescos nor Amazon are nuts enough to spam their actual or potential cutomers with loudly insulting crap.

For example:
Human voices are expensive, and products like bleach don't do well with expensive marketing -- how much more bleach are you going to get someone to buy by engaging micromarkets? and at what cost?

Isn't that what I said?

i.e. True, But Clay still has a point: I don't want to listen to engaging voices discussing bleach any more than I want to be spammed about it across 7 different media.

Not the exact words, but I was agreeing with you on that point. There isn't any milage in changing from a low cost to a high cost method when the low cost one already works. Not for me the customer and not for you the marketer.

Why do you think I started my rant with "Clay, you got your head screwed on straight mate" ?

Did you think I didn't mean it?

I did, sincerely.

I didn't say (or didn't mean to say) that the web is inherently inimical to mass marketing, but it surely hasn't shown any signs of rewarding the traditional broadcast techniques which have been unthinkingly attempted. There's an important difference here I believe.

And, just in passing, I'd note that Amazon is far from making any profit. It *may* survive and indeed prosper - I sure hope so, I buy a lot of stuff off them because I (mostly) like the way they operate - but it is far from certain. IIRC, they are still well over 2 Bills in the hole. Hardly a shining example by any means.

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money - the Shit has hit the Fan
- Warren Zevon