Wow. Do people think this is due to the current pandemic or something Amazon was planning to do all along?

Maybe Amazon thinks they don't need affiliates anymore since most consumers head to them for online shopping anyways?

How does Amazon compare to other affiliate programs now is what you need to ask yourself. A lot of smaller programs can be found aggregated in places like share-a-sale so it's worth going to see what, if any, of your inventory can be changed for other retailers.

This is tripple whammy in short order in my mind. The richest man in the world didn't negotiate for his worker's health during a pandemic and instead set up a donation system so other people could pay his worker's health costs. ONE program was cancelled costing me international commisions and now he's picking affiliate pockets it seems. In my niche 8% down to 3% is game over, for Amazon, because I know of a half dozen other companies who offer much better payouts than Amazon.

Don't feel badly for the richest guy in the world, you should be out to maximize your earnings too, and helping smaller companies is probably a good thing anyway.

Good luck everyone. Everyone is hurting. Not everyone is asking for others to carry their costs.

Those are big reductions. This is going to hurt a bunch of review sites.
It looks like there are still a few categories they haven't changed. Yet?

He's betting he doesn't need as many affiliates to continue dominating his competition.

He may just find that his affiliates back his smaller competition moving forward.

Those are not trivial cuts but it's his bet to make.

I would imagine this had been the works for awhile and then conveniently a pandemic happens. Why not use it for cover? Never let a good crisis go to waste.

How does this line up with other recent Amazon news: Jeff Bezos Gains $24 Billion [finance.yahoo.com]?

It seems that Amazon is one of the few companies which is actually seeing business growing in this period. The only reason I can see is that they see so many cuts in affiliate programs across the board that they just follow the mass because they understand that affiliates can't go anywhere else anyway.

Does this update is going to happen with Amazon.in also?

Amazon can go F themselves, I promoted them years ago when commissions were somewhat decent but have not done so for a few years, this is not the first time they have reduced their commissions. Why promote them when there are other companies that offer double or triple commissions for better products. I'm sure some may argue about the good conversions but it takes just as much time and effort promoting an item that pays 3% as one that pays 10% or more.

Any update regarding the amazon?

In my opinion, they found a lot of fraud recently, booted some bad players, then decided to slash the rest. This is what happens when self-policing is ineffective. Bad apples spoil the whole barrel.

This will affect both Amazon and affiliate marketing.

Amazon is by far the worst affiliate company I have worked for for the past 15 years. I am only forced to use them because it seems everyone shops at amazon anyway but my goodness, when I compare to the traffic I have sent them over the years and the money they have paid me, daylight robbery.

I earn in one month with the Ebay affiliate program what I earn in an entire year with Amazon. Again, by far the worst affiliate company ever.

Good opportunity for affiliates to do the right thing and stop feeding the overfed dog.

Never base a business model on affiliate sales. Affiliate programs always die off.

As with ads affiliate networks are an easy simple default.
As with ads a publisher should work towards direct affiliate relationships.

Yes, even these may ‘die off’ but the loss is typically less, one of many relationships rather than a single overarching business ending one. Plus the returns are exponentially greater while the relationship lasts.

Business model, business model, whatever should one’s business model be? Pick one, live with the decision. Adapt early or suffer later.

Or get in, get yours, get out before the boom busts...

For sure affiliate programs die off and change over time. But the same can be said for ads, it's just with most ads you join a network and the network does all the heavy lifting of making sure it has the advertising to display on your site.

Affiliate programs are also not as profitable as they use to be (most of them), but that can also be said for Ad networks.

As iamlost says affiliate networks can be MUCH more profitable. You just have to make sure you don't put all your effort into one affiliate program but have several just in case something happens to that program, your traffic changes, etc....

I have had affiliate programs last only a few months to a number of them last for close to 20 years (and counting).

Things change ... mechanics change as well. Even with computers doing the heavy lifting I suspect Amazon's bookkeeping is a pretty penny on their side of the equation. That said, those are some steep cuts. G, at least, spanned the pain of diminishing returns over a period of years!