this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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It used to be that if you searched for a particular brand or product on Amazon, that's what would come up. Now you get sponsored links followed by pages of brands with names like "QERNTOO". Amazon essentially transferred the responsibility for vetting brands to the US patent and trade office. The resellers, drop shippers, and scammers create dumb unique brand names to get the paperwork through the USPTO quickly whenever they have a brand fall apart or get caught scamming.
You can get stuff quickly through Amazon, but it really isn't worth it anymore. Often you can get products right from the website of actual brands for the same price. You might not get 2 day shipping, but that's almost never necessary. If you live somewhere where the 2 day shipping actually gets to you in 2 days, you live close enough to a brick and mortar store where you can get whatever you need even faster.
I live in a major west coast city and "next" or "second day" shipping often takes 3 or 4 and Amazon just effectively says "oh well". It:s become kind pf a scam.
That's not really true if you need a specific thing, or choice of thing, and not just a generic version of thing. And ...
... often you spend a hours finding an item somewhere else and when you go to checkout, they redirect you to their Amazon store.
I fully support efforts to boycott Amazon. But, sad to say, sometimes it's not really feasible.