Amazon is also losing me with all of the 3rd party items it sells and how it keep pushing items at the top of the page due to sponsorships, etc.

Sadly, it seems every merchant is eventually led to this kind of abuse. A search on Google is now littered with ads, line after line after line. Sometimes it’s hard to find what you’re looking for through all the ads.

Amazon pushes sponsored crap to the top of the searches there.

WalMart puts sponsored items at eye level, although you don’t understand that as easily as the online “pushes”, but it’s common in the supermarket industry; stores are paid to give “prime space” (eye level shelfs and end caps) for payment to move product. For slightly less payment they will move a favorite product away - or out - in favor of someone who will pay for the shelf space (it’s called “slotting allowances”) and manufacturers pay the bribe to get into the stores.

My brother, who was in the grocery store set-up business, spent his entire life juggling manufacturer demands and bribes with the realities of trying to have the products people actually want on the shelves. There’s a funny side-phenomenon to this push to introduce new products, called “the sophomore slump”. It’s when the incentives go away, the sales people aren’t getting pep talked, and some other manufacturer pays to have *their* new product on the shelves - which is why 90% of new products fail within two years.

Got carried away there, sorry. Anyway, yeah. Everybody crapifies eventually.

And don’t get me started on Facebook.

Goofy: won’t use “you shop for me” services because I like to choose my own bananas, etc.