Amazon has turned into an monopolistic shit-hole littered with pay-to-play ads, FTC lawsuit solemnly argues
Amazon has turned into an monopolistic shit-hole littered with pay-to-play ads, FTC lawsuit solemnly argues
"Amazon shifted gears so that it now litters its storefront with pay-to-play advertisements. In addition to overcharging its customers, Amazon is degrading the services it provides them."
Archived page, if you're paywalled or region-blocked.
A quick example. When I searched for “Apple lightning cord” on Amazon, my top three results were for cables made by a company called “Durcord,” then an Amazon Basics cord, then a four-pack of cables made by a company called Susnwere, then, finally, a cable made by Apple itself. When I searched for “Anker lightning cable,” the top ad slot was for three Anker charging blocks—NOT the lightning cable. Then I was given lightning cables for a company called Gyusity and one from a company called KIYODA, before the Anker cable showed up. When I searched for simply "lightning cord," none of the results on the first page were from Apple, many of them were sponsored, and the top result for a product called "Apple iPhone Charger Cable" was from a company called Uzento.
Yeah you've really gotta pay attention when you're ordering on Amazon.
Or, you know, don't order on Amazon.
Sure, you could do that.
Amazon is a horrid, ghastly company which behaves criminally, treats its employees with medieval cruelty, illegally busts unions, and is actively part of the ongoing destruction of the environment and looming climate change. However, if you put another $17 of merchandise in your cart, you can get free same-day delivery.
Although I should have done this a while ago, I'm now mainly using firefox to browse amazon if there's something I'm after. UBlock kills all the sponsored crap. That's not to say Amazon isn't doing some other bs when it comes to the default ordering but it's better than getting a sponsored product literally every two products. In fact, it's more like 2 or 3 in a row...
As a test, I turned off my adblockers for a moment, and can confirm that doing so immediately made Amazon's search function even more garbagey.
How can anyone tolerate the web without an adblocker?