this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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I propose we make a massive product database. If you need to buy something, you can see your options there on a level playing field. Companies who spend more money don’t get any more visibility than any other. If you don’t feel like spending any money, the database isn’t trying to push you down a spending spiral.
And then for convenience, add a shopping cart so it's not a separate research step - congrats, you've invented Amazon.
Congrats, you missed the whole point about Amazon.
As others already replied, the business model of Amazon (and any marketplace that sells its own products within it while being part of an oligopoly) is precisely to prevent unbiased comparison. Amazon gets data on all the products being sold on its website, its warehouses occupancy ... then make Amazon Basics and replace them. They did that before also with diapers among many other examples e.g. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/emails-detail-amazons-plan-to-crush-a-startup-rival-with-price-cuts/ but they also do the same with software products, e.g. AWS.
So no, clearly Amazon is not about having fair comparisons and a shopping cart. Amazon is about being the ONLY shopping cart one can have fill it with Amazon products.
PS: to clarify also something very obvious but just in case it's not so, Amazon by the simple fact of controlling the order of search results control what customers can, or can not, see and thus compare and in fine buy. Even if it did not sell it's own products (which again, it does) it would still be able to manipulate what customers buy. That is, again, the opposite of an unbiased product comparison service.
Amazon is everything but a level playing field and it is highly manipulated.
Yes but now do a search for the item in your cart and buy it somewhere else.
I absolutely agree with you. But where I live, Amazon is cheaper than any other sellers, online or stores. I hate it but I only have so much money to spend.
If you continue to support monopolies, soon you'll have less to spend.