I’m all for the boycotts, but also… Amazon just sucks now.
Have you noticed?
I search for “boys size 7 shoes wide deliver tomorrow.”
How clear and concise I am! I’m doing a shopping!
The first 3 options are for toddlers.
And not size 7.
Good work “sponsored” section. You’re killing it!
Okay “big kid size 7 shoes wide deliver tomorrow.”
Here are 20 shoes that aren’t size 7 and will not be delivered tomorrow.
Some of these are size 7 but they’re 3 inches shorter than other size 7s. So the number doesn’t mean anything? I have to look at the size chart.
And one size chart says the shoes are… 21 inches long?!
They mean 12 inches. But proofreading is secondary to SEO word-salad names like “boys girls shoe wide narrow kid child unisex.”
And as long as you’re in the Sponsored (first) section, you’ll probably trick a few people into buying your wrong-sized shoe.
And I KNOW What I’m Doing
I speak Internet-eeze.
I can Google search like nobody’s business. Exclude this. Include that. Verbatim the other thing.
I could find anything!
But that doesn’t even work anymore.
What I search doesn’t seem to matter… not more than what they want to show me.
Skipping the Sponsored doesn’t even help.
All these new AI answers and AI features are making the internet unusable.
It’s a sea of orobourous-ing AI content feeding on each other and shitting out… themselves?
There’s some ghost in the machine. Some problem of SEO. Some capitalism corrupting my already PAINFUL buying experience.
Decisions Decisions
Decision fatigue is a real thing: *link to a cool TED Talk*.
The TLDR is: If there are 4 options for jam, you’ll pick one. If there are 30, you’ll decide the jam struggle is not your cross to bear.
You won’t even really be aware of it… you’ll just stare for a while, feel bad, and then leave.
Or you’ll feel overwhelmed and exhausted. Torn between needing jam and impossible calculations.
So you’ll buy a random jam.
Am I supposed to buy a random shoe? A random size? WHY.
We’ve been to the moon and I can’t see a list exclusively of Size 7s? Even when I use the little search garbage on the left?
I get shoes that *theoretically* have a size 7, but they’re out of stock in this multiverse. And they COULD come tomorrow if I chose the size 3s.
“Come on, just buy some random shoes! If they’re the wrong size you can just order more. More. MORE.”
Am I Just A Grump?
Yes and…
I have to tell you: I hate shopping.
The lights. The crowds.
Why do I need to cut a coupon to get the coupon price? Can’t anyone just make this easier?
As a marketer, I understand discounts and how they motivate action.
As a consumer, either give them to me or don’t.
The more hoops I have to jump through, the less I’m buying from that brand.
The Internet’s Tail Wagging the Dog
I blame capitalism. Shareholders requiring higher and higher profits every quarter.
Only thinking in quarters.
How can we get a sale today AT ANY COST. Forget quality, customer experience, or longevity.
For example, in February 2026 an AI podcast network published 11,000 episodes PER DAY.
The episodes aren’t long. And they aren’t good. But they will show up in searches.
Someone will get tricked into listening. And then SUCCESS! A capitalism gets its wings!
As I understand it (which is beginner-level at best), a small town news source publishes something. AI finds that something and within 20 minutes makes a 3-minute podcast “about” that topic.
So your nephew winning the soapbox derby in Nowhere, KS will be on a podcast! And you can share it with everyone. 🥳
🤖 Nevermind. It’s an AI voice pronouncing his name wrong. And just repeating whatever the local journalist said.
Passion vs Production
Yes, channels with more content get more views. But it’s not BECAUSE they have more content.
It’s because the content is made with care and passion. The creator enjoyed the process, and therefore kept making it. People watch because it resonates with them.
Not just because it exists.
It’s a long process. It takes longer than a single financial quarter.
And maybe that’s why capitalism can’t grasp it.
Yes, local and specific news is interesting to that location, specifically.
But not if it’s AI slop, repeating bullet points and adding nothing.
No human can compete with 11,000 episodes per day.
I can barely put out 1 podcast episode per week (on YouTube and Spotify).
Their deluge of content and wild SEO *will* show up on hundreds of thousands of feeds…
But AI can’t compete with real customer service. Simple options that meet your needs. Care, time, and energy put into a product, right?
Right?!
Amazon can’t trick me into buying 15 pairs of the wrong size shoes. And those “simple returns” we took for “good customer service”?
CBS reported that 293,000 items went from a warehouse to the dump. From 1 warehouse. In a 9 month period.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
TL;DR
Fuck Amazon. Shop local.
Words About Stuff by Amy the Copywriter
Art by RAD Studio