Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products

[onenote]

46. I use Amazon all the time.

For example, I have found on Amazon, and purchased, screws I needed for my underwater camera housing that I couldn't find at any hardware store and that would have cost, literally, 100X as much if I bought them from the housing manufacturer (and taken longer to get). I have used them to purchase OTC medications -- brand names -- at prices far better than the big chain drug stores offer, with next day delivery. Amazon frequently "recommends" products such as that -- brand names that presumably they can sell at a better price than third party retailers offering the same product because Amazon deals with volume, a practice that has been going on forever. And while they don't recommend the generic versions of those OTC medications, they are there on the page if I want to consider them, which I never do because I don't trust what I'd be getting. I routinely check Amazon for certain things before I go buy them from a chain retailer like CVS or Target. I don't use gas running all over the place looking for the best prices -- I find them at one location, while sitting on my couch. Heck, I've used my phone to buy a present for a relative while attending a party for her where she mentioned how much she wanted a particular item. She got it the next day.

If people don't want to use Amazon, they shouldn't use it. Just like they shouldn't use Facebook or Google or Netflix or a zillion other Internet-based retailers of goods and services. I'm having trouble seeing how a website that sells Mucinex has a monopoly when every drug store and grocery store sells it too (and in many cases those outlets, as well as Mucinex itself sell the same product online and will deliver it to one's door).