I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book.
I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit.
The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain to and they said nobody and closed the chat. I reopened it, restarted the refund, it was accepted and then 2 hours later I got an email saying that unless I sent them ID my refund would be rejected and that I can "no longer contact them" about this refund. I ignored that email, sent the book back and got the refund.
Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
That level of service would have been totally unheard of for Amazon 5 years ago.
I recently had a similar experience with Amazon. I bought a pair of AirPods but didn’t like them, so I returned them the next day. Amazon confirmed they’d received the package, but when the estimated refund date passed, I got a message saying they needed more information.
When I contacted customer service, they told me I had to send them a copy of my ID to process the refund. I was really frustrated; I’ve had this account for over 20 years and never had any issues before. I spoke with several representatives, but they all gave me the same response, and a few were even rude and aggressive, something I’d never experienced with Amazon before.
Since I didn’t want to share my ID, I decided to go through my credit card provider (Visa) instead and filed a claim. Visa refunded my money, but shortly after, I got an email from Amazon asking why I’d raised a Section 75 claim (the UK’s credit card protection scheme) and informing me that my account would be closed for fraudulent activity.
I replied with proof that they had received my return and never issued a refund. That was the last I ever heard from them, and the last time I bought anything from Amazon.
.de promised to call me, never called. Split an order in three, used a bank account I had already removed from the system, then made me pay a fee three times when the money naturally could not be retrieved. One item in the order was a fake, when I returned it they claimed I kept it - thankfully I still had the receipt that I returned something, together with some stern words that was enough to end that.
Never buy from Amazon, especially not .de. Germany has a bunch of alternative online shops that are better.
Well, germany has customer protection laws, but before amazon, customer service was always worse than in the US i would say.
Just think about Media markt customer service for example…
Amazon changed that by introducing US-style no-questions-asked 30 day returns etc… but nowadays they are slowly chipping away at that, 14 days is the the norm now, (which is the hard limit anyway, since being set into law a couple years ago)
But yes the customer friendliness is slowly being cut down, due to growing costs. Zalando (an online fashion retailer) has also reduced their return policy recently.
... and not just the law but consumer protection agencies. The Verbraucherschutz does not mess around - break the law strategically and you will get banged up hard.
This is what Cory writes about: We need laws and regulations if we want to prevent enshittifiaction.
In the US these laws have been dismantled since the 70s (if I get the text correctly, I'm not expert on US labor law). And in Germany there is a chancellor who is pushing to increase the 40 work week (which still meant up to 50 hours) to a 48 hour work week - that's the change necessary to have Amazon (and others) treat their drivers and warehouse workers with more dignity. /s
> Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
I once ordered a new pair of Jeans, expensive ones because I wanted them to last, from Amazon and got an obviously used and ripped pair sent to me.
I sent it back, noted that in my reason for sending it back only to receive an email from them with the same sentiment as you got. Luckily I kept all the receipts (figuratively) and took a lot of photos and screenshots.
Reaching out to support they apologized profusely to me but still it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm sure it'll happen again sometime in the future.
Because it's still better than the alternatives. I recently ordered a small item from a specialist retailer. Payment by Paypal was easy enough (ethically questionable, yes, but faffing about with credit cards on the internet in 2025 is just a complete PITA not to mention insecure). But the delivery was a nightmare. It took weeks, to the point that I needed to change the delivery address. But customer service turned out to be an AI bot which ignored everything I wrote while confidently reassuring me that it had understood and was acting on it. In the end I had to cancel the whole purchase. A terrible experience, alas worse than anything I've ever had from the evil monopolist of Seattle.
They are in reverse chronological order. I only buy cheap crap from them now, like Ethernet cables, sd cards, books. Never anything over $20 and I never will
I don't think there even is a problem, from Amazon's point of view. CSRs can't tell you the truth ("we will try to avoid refunding you or will delay it as much as possible"), they can't stay quiet (because then delaying won't be as efficient) and they can't blame the company (because... well, they can't). So lying is basically all they can do.
In any high-churn job environment like customer support it's easier to assume people will leave rather than fire them. Most of the time you'll be right. That means there's no incentive to manage bad workers.
How did you even tell them that they sent the wrong book?
When an item I ordered is delivered as the wrong item or when it never arrives, I can only select from a list of items in order to inform them about the bad delivery and none of the items lists "item never arrived" or "wrong item arrived".
And there is no other way to complain about the delivery/item--no help chat, no email I can contact.
One of the return options is 'item did not arrive'. You can also select 'I need help with another issue' or something like that, and either chat with support and explain or request a call.
(At least, in the UK. Like sibling comment to yours it's the amazing support and returns that makes me shop at Amazon (.de in their case) - I don't recognise the disaster described elsewhere in thread and I probably wouldn't shops there!)
Off the top of my head I can't remember but something like I need help with an order, then click "something else" or ask the automated chat to put you through to someone.
Yeah - I think they’ve put a big focus on reducing returns over the last year. I bought a Quest 3 last year. One of the controllers totally packed in within half an hour - thumb stick permanently locked to full. Wanted to do an RMA.
Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods, it would have to be unused in the box, and that I should contact meta.
I contacted meta, who told me to go hang, as they don’t officially support Portugal, which is where Amazon Spain happily shipped it.
So it’s just sat in a box gathering dust since, and I now avoid using Amazon whenever possible. I had already ditched meta so frankly I should have known that I was going to step on a rake.
> Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods
I don't buy it. Don't we have actual consumer protection laws here in europe? We can return anything we bought online in 14 days time, full refund, no questions asked.
That’s the law, yeah - and if the goods are faulty it’s actually up to two years.
But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws - I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain, and I’m having stuff shipped to Portugal, and Spanish consumer protection regs (which implement the EU regs) only protect consumers in Spain.
I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain,
IANAL, but I don't think it matters. Any webshop in the EU must sell to all EU customers and they should provide the same warranty, etc. to all EU customers as if you were buying it in the country they are selling from (Spain in this case). The EU is a single market.
Amazon is violating EU consumer protection law here, but they probably do it because most customers will feel helpless and not sue them. If you do not want to sue them, the best thing is probably to file a complaint with the Portuguese consumer authority. It's really important to do this, because only when enough people do such a thing, a pattern can be established and they can warn or sue Amazon.
In my experience in the UK, Amazon is better than consumer protection laws, and miles better than other vendors. They won't question or require lots of information etc. to support things in however many years of warranty, or even outside of it.
Not to mention the standard is 30 day returns, more than double the legally mandated 14 for distance selling.
I don't understand why you were even talking to support - if it was clearly defective within half an hour (much less than 30 days) you could have just created a return yourself without talking to anybody?
Because it’s Amazon Spain and I live in Portugal - they only do return labels etc. for a collection point 200km from where I live, otherwise, you have to ship stuff back at your own expense. No option to automatically open a return.
It’s basically the Amazon uk returns process from 20 years ago.
They should repair it under warranty, period. If they cannot make a return label, you can send it back. IIRC they are also responsible for the shipping cost, but they can refund it afterwards when they are not able to create a return label.
I think your mistake might be that they are sticking to the letter of the law. Don't ask for your 14-day cool-off period, because strictly I think the product needs to be sealed (though many sellers are more lenient):
Instead ask for a repair under warranty, which they are required to do as a seller. They cannot point you to the manufacturer, the seller is responsible for handling warranty for the first two years:
You don't have small claims court? Here in Canada, it's $150 to register, you fill out the form yourself, no lawyers are allowed, and you argue your case in front of a judge.
(A company can have someone represent them, but if it's a lawyer, they must also have a rep. from the company there. and there can be no legalise, and the judge must explain anything to you if you ask)
There is no forced discoverability. EG, the other side cannot ask for all sorts of documents. You just include your evidence in the filing.
There is no ability for the company you sue, to compel costs if you lose.
For $150 you get a lot of joy out of hassling a company behaving like this. And amusingly, they still consult lawyers, and spend on a lot on lawyers. They can't be used in court, but they of course as a company consult legal experts.
I napkin mathed it, the one time I sued a company. I figured it cost them $25,000 to defend when I spent $150. If even a small percentage of people take them to task for breaking the law, they'll turn around quick.
Always use your enemies strengths as a weakness against them.
You should look at the process, but view if from the perspective of a hobby.
They do, but it’s only available to Portuguese citizens - I am a legally resident alien, but am excluded from that system, as it requires a citizen card to start a claim.
I would hope that consumer protection organizations can help you with that without having to engage lawyers: similarly, Amazon is not interested in long running legal battles if they see you are serious.
That level of service is for on-boarding customers. Sounds crazy, but they had a multi year on-boarding plan. We are now on-boarded, so why would they keep funding an on-boarding program that accepts any and all returns? The on-boarding process was complete awhile ago.
Retention is the next program they’ll have to initiate, but no reason to finance this now as there are no competitors just yet.
Listen, when it was said that corporations are amoral and sociopathic, it was not a joke.
A huge part for me is how they handle employees and how that makes employees steal things.
My wife ordered an iPhone and we received a salt mill and a flashlight. Called them, they said sorry send it back. But then they would not return the money cause we did not return the phone. At that point Amazon accused us for betrayal and forced us to take a lawyer to get parts of the money back.
That was our last day of using Amazon or prime video.
A few weeks ago I bought a "new" coffee maker which arrived physically broken and with used coffee grounds in the hopper. I don't understand how this is even possible.
That's the last thing I'm buying on Amazon.
Amazon pre-COVID was amazing. But 2-day shipping is now 5+ day shipping. It's chock full of cheap/fraudulent junk. It's been interesting to watch it go downhill so fast.
That's return fraud, someone orders a new version of a product they have, put their old product in the new box and file a return immediately. Amazon probably doesnt take the time to check it or check it thoroughly. Goes back on the shelf and you receive it.
Amazon shouldn't sell returned products as "new," but as "open box."
The other way it happens is co-mingling. Some vendor sends an "open box" product to Amazon as new, or a fake product, and Amazon ships it out when sold by Amazon since it considers goods to be fungible.
I stopped buying anything which goes in my body from eBay, Amazon, and similar after receiving a premium food product with very clearly fake packaging.
Maybe local laws, but probably a third of what I buy on Amazon is sold as "refurbished" which, 90% of the time is just damaged packaging or products that spent a few minutes outside it.
They weigh it. That's all they do. I know someone that bought an open box camera off Amazon and received a piece of wood that weighed the same as the camera.
Maybe it's because I'm in WA, but my average Amazon deliver is <2 days. This "2-day shipping is now 5+ day shipping" is just outright untrue out here. I usually get stuff next day, free. Although I also do Amazon Day for that extra cashback on my card. That card has paid a mortgage payment or two since I got it a couple years ago.
And I still haven't gotten a single fraudulent item despite a steady stream of Amazon boxes to my house (I requested an extra recycle bin I get so many.)
Despite trying to instill a customer-centric culture, as soon as Bezos let his foot off the gas, his company just isn't as customer obsessed. Or, they changed their definition of customer from the buyer to the seller.
I dramatically lowered my buying from Amazon about 8 years ago, when I noticed that listings had reviews on items that were completely different than what was being listed. Apparently, sellers sell a known good product that gets good reviews, and then swap it out for something else, so that the new product can piggy back off of the good karma. Amazon just didn't shut this down for years. Also, when Fulfillment services by Amazon mixed the the official provider's inventory with 3rd party distributors and reseller inventories. Sometimes, people would get knock-offs. I knew then, Amazon would coast for at least a decade before the decline would be apparent.
I thought I'd buy more Shopify stock as a result. Dunno if I ever did.
They still haven’t - it’s trivially abused through variations. List a new variation, change photos, delist old variation = new “product” with old reviews/ratings.
They know this but they do not care. They feel they are indemnified because they aren’t the end seller.
The law should make them responsible for what they sell - otherwise what’s the value they add?
> Or, they changed their definition of customer from the buyer to the seller.
s/seller/shareholder/
I almost never buy from Amazon any more. For certain things it is difficult because Amazon has destroyed so much logistics and has such a stranglehold that a lot small/medium sized companies only sell through Amazon now. I ordered some kitchen gadget a few months ago from the company's own website, thinking I was avoiding Amazon, and it was delivered by an Amazon driver.
Another mind boggling aspect of Amazon’s review system is that it categorises multiple products / variations under one. So if you want to buy products X with variations X1, X2 and X3- the review page for product X1 will also show X2, X3 ratings bundled together. You don’t quite know the rating of X1 individually. You can filter reviews out by the overall rating is the aggregated view. I can’t believe how this is helpful for customers.
I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title.
I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription.
Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish business, becase they are getting the floor wiped. I haven't had a single issue some other people are mentioning.
My take is that it's because there is still competition in Sweden to keep them on their toes. Once they have decimated the Swedish high street, like they have in the UK, they will start cutting costs.
I've had crappy service on UK high streets long before Amazon. A keyboard I got from Tottenham Court Road stopped working within a week so I took it back in person. The shop manager tried to tell me I had to send it to the manufacturer. He backed down when I put the phrase "contractual relationship" into a sentence.
It was one of the many independent shops on that street. Curiously, the place is lately like a physical version of how Doctorow describes Amazon search results in the article: the same narrow selection of products, repeated at different prices.
I'm sceptical of Amazon's ability to do this in a country with strong consumer protection laws. If Amazon becomes the default for every online purchase in Sweden, and then enshittify, assuming there aren't other options to fall back on, the pressure will be pretty heavy, while in the US, that pressure basically doesn't exist.
Strange. I’ve only had really poor experiences with Amazon and Amazon deliveries in Sweden and really good ones in the US. In Sweden the delivery network seems full of other parties that frequently fail to show up at the last minute multiple times in a row. The translations are humorously bad and the selection is small.
I am in the USA and order lots of stuff from there too and have never once had any of these issues really. I return tons of stuff to them also. Anything you don’t like or need you can just return, as Amazon has the best return policy on Earth. I’m not happy that the world is moving to monoliths like Amazon, but I use what makes life easiest for me and saves me money.
And because they’re new, we have plenty of homegrown internet retailers for competition. Personally, I avoid Amazon in favor of the others if at all possible, seems like there’s a really significant risk Amazon is going to wipe them out.
For me it's problematic though. Sometimes I want some small gadget, and I just can't find it elsewhere. The other day I wanted a female-female connector for network cables and I couldn't find it on my Swedish go-to place for tech stuff, Kjell&Co. Instantly found lots of alternatives on Amazon.
eBay might have some similar problems as Amazon (fly-by-night retailers from China etc), but at least it doesn't pretend otherwise.
Or from Denmark, but delivery is probably expensive. (Within-EU delivery costs is something I'd like to see the EU improve, to allow smaller businesses to compete internationally with Amazon etc.)
Yeah, this happens everywhere. Amazon in Germany also became a lot crappier once they had a strong foothold in the market.
Even if they are still great in Sweden, don't buy from them, don't let them murder your local, healthy ecosystem. (If you think it's not healthy, wait until they have most of the market.)
Here in California, Amazon stopped honoring their shipping time "guarantees" years ago. They still say Prime is a two-day guarantee. When you order, they say delivery will take place within two days. Your order will have a scheduled delivery date reflecting that statement.
But later they'll quietly update the scheduled delivery date on your order. If you complain that a package hasn't arrived on time, they'll tell you to wait until it does arrive. If you ask for redress for the late delivery, they'll say no.
Sometimes you actually need to receive a birthday gift before attending the party, you know.
They've also stopped packing their goods in a way that prevents them from being damaged in transit. A book you order from Amazon today will arrive stuffed into a manila envelope that it can barely fit inside. The corners will be damaged.
I return all goods even slightly damaged, but take a pic, print it, and include a note.
I do so l, so that returns can see it arrrived in poor shape, not from it being returned.
But... saving 3 cents per package on a box, may be cheaper that an extra return out of 1000?
I imagine the original seller doesn't know (when only shipped but not sold by amazon), so too bad for them, and Amazon even removed the return option "box ok but product damaged".
The enshitification guy needs to keep his brand alive apparently. 99% of the time Amazon and its delivery people deliver what I ordered on time and if there's ever a problem returns are easy.
What on earth is he talking about? Firstly, I find Amazon fine for goods that are hard to be faked (washing powder, books, etc...).
But the real shocker to me is:
> That means shopping anywhere other than Amazon has become substantially more inconvenient.
and
> We’re all still stuck to the platform, but we get less and less value out of it.
I've simply started buying all of my electronics, and other expensive goods from the manufacturer (D2C) or a reputable retailer in the space. My groceries I can order through my supermarket or one of the grocery focused platforms. They all offer simple free or cheap shipping at a convenient time. I think, to some extent, Amazon has helped this push for better/cheaper shipping.
> Break up with Amazon and delete your apps, and you will lose all the media you’ve ever bought from the platform.
Yes... but if you simply stop paying them you will keep them all? I have never bought a movie through Prime but I have some audio books which all work fine despite me no longer paying Audible.
All in all it seems like this guy has come up with some hypothesis of their master plan but the reality is that switching costs are low and Amazon doesn't hold a monopoly in any tangible way.
> you can’t stop enshittification by “voting with your wallet” (those votes are always won by those with the thickest wallets, and that’s the billionaires who made money by enshittifying everything)
Er... Amazon can't run with only the patronage of billionaires? What is he imagining, Elon Musk just buys a billion dollars a day from his mate Jeff? Obviously if the platform gets worse, customers will start switching (en masse) to the 85-90% of global ecommerce that Amazon doesn't control.
In some ways Amazon's entshittification is others' gain. For example, Amazon used to be a place you could easily buy and download music files legally. But they entshittified their music product to the point where it was impossible to use. Others stepped in selling lossless format downloads with a good buyer experience and made nice businesses out of them. The same will happen in all other areas previously dominated by Amazon.
I'm not sure how. Their warehouses and deliveries are very efficient. I'm sure it cost a fortune to build out. Hard to compete with without a ton of capital.
Has anyone else ordered a pair of shoes only to open the box and find... one shoe?
Best I can guess someone's ordered two pairs, split one of the pairs across the two boxes, and sent both boxes back for two refunds and they've gone straight back on the shelf.
Amazon's search results have been garbage from a really long time, I often wonder how come the executives or the team behind it never experience that themselves. I now to Amazon only if I know exactly what brand I am going to buy before opening Amazon.
I also quit Prime couple of years ago. Hardly miss it.
Amazon search looks bad for us because it is designed to sell ads. Its goal is to make company pay the most money to show articles.
Iirc, when this was proposed, Jeff Bazos said that this was the most stupid idea he ever heard.
I think the reason why it was introduced, and why Executives don't want to change it, is that it generates a ton of money for Amazon.
I'd personally love if in the end this would be the reason that Amazon stop making money and it would have been some short sighted greedy move. I'm afraid that advertisement, when it comes down to numbers, is just damn too profitable.
Unfortunately the store's primary revenue source seems to be from advertisers bidding on sponsored search result slots instead of the actual product sales.
Amazon kindle books search is designed to show you authors other than the name you search on, to increase sales of "in the style of" which could have been a tickbox item, but no: they know it irritates, but it makes them more money.
If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively. Even if you select the Web link author name, you get "in the style of"
> If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively.
I tried it:
- on the website from the home page
- in the Kindle category
- on my Kindle directly
All I got was books by Dickens.
There was the usual "sponsored" items but they are explicitly displayed as it.
I don't know if it's a country issue, but I don't have the same experience as you.
Furthermore, I read regularly on HN comments about how bad Amazon became, selling fake products, taking forever to send packages...
Again, maybe a country issue, but here in France my experience is the same as it was ten years ago.
It's even a bit better thanks to the number of Lockers that are available near my flat or my office and the fact that more and more refurbished products are offered.
If shitty Amazon experiences went from 0.1% of customers to 1% of customers, then almost everyone still has a good experience - but now people are much more likely to be at least within anecdote range of someone who has a bad experience.
I'm in France, too. I don't know about fake products, I rarely buy "premium" stuff on Amazon. However, a few months ago I received a bag sold as new which had clearly been used, since I found a face mask and a random receipt in one of the pockets.
One explanation is this is the standard rollout of Amazon. First they undercut all the local options, and then once the population embraces them they flip the switch.
Amazon has always been about cash flow over profits. So they don’t really need to make money if that’s not yet one of the goals.
Aside from A/B testing, there may be insufficient profit in the Francophonie, to justify stuffing the shop front with dreck. This is not an insult, it's an upside of not being monoglot anglophone.
I am outside US and have used them to ship internationally because they are one of the rare retailers who will ship delivery duty paid, avoiding local UPS/FedEx/DHL offices charging 30-60 USD just to do customs processing (local ~30% customs fees still come on top of combined shipping and item prices). Their international shipping charges have gone bonkers recently though too (what used to be like $70 for an ultraportable laptop is now like $200+). Thus I am bound to Amazon.de more but there's a smaller selection.
I also temporarily sign up for Prime when I visit US (usually for a week), but recently, unless I order on Sunday of my arrival and deliver to one of their lockers, "2-day shipping" or even extra paid same-day-shipping won't arrive by Friday to my hotel (last few experiences in Boston, MA).
Due to only "delivered by Amazon" products having delivery-duty-paid option, I avoid some of the risk of new Amazon, but I need to be extra careful when shopping while in the US.
Local shops are scams in my area: expensive, don’t take back items, limited selections, don’t have the right items and have to settle for less, time consuming, bad customer service, can have language requirements for some people at the time of disputes (but not when selling), the reviews of items are not available and a lot of them turn out to be bad, long waiting lines … Your complaints about online shopping remain with local shopping.
The benefits of online shopping for consumers are plenty and evident. The majority of products I bought online that I researched carefully have been solid.
> Local shops are scams in my area: expensive, don’t take back items, limited selections, don’t have the right items and have to settle for less, time consuming…
None of these are scams, you're misusing the word. You mean a worse shopping experience, not defrauding the customer.
I live in a country with the same problems, and everything here is so much more expensive, it absolutely deserves to be called a scam. Stuff such as books and electronics can easily be 2x as expensive locally as abroad.
Amazon in India is truly a miracle service. Affordable, has the largest range of products with quick and easy returns. I think it’s basically impossible to compete with it.
I missed out on what seems to be the deterioration over the last few years; I stopped using Amazon, some years ago, because I'd seen too many and consistent stories of the work lives of warehouse staff.
Amazon is my last resort nowadays, because some things are only sold there and on alibaba. If I only find a thing I want on amazon, I'll search again for the vendor name to see if they have a site of their own and if so buy it there instead
It does help me buy less stuff because the process is so annoying nowadays
The genious leadership at prime video thought it would be a good idea to introduce adds not only on the beginning of movies but also in the middle of it, with an extra paid option (on top of prime) to remove it. When an add appeared I got so frustrated I cancelled my prime subscription at that very moment. I wonder if they even considered/cared about brand reputation impact.
I've seen (somewhere on HN) it compared to soviet central planning committees: decisions are made by people so far removed from any actual situation on the ground and with so little accountability they have no hope of making correct ones, and then sooner or later, whatever they're in charge of collapses.
Sadly, brand reputation is a means to an end. If they lose the most demanding 5% of customers, while getting 10% more profit from the other 95%, that's a huge net win.
At least in the short term. But manager bonuses and promotions and the stock price are all based on the short term, aren't they?
I've noticed that the enshitifacation of e-commerce marketplaces has become a global problem. Here's what I've observed for the past 5 years or so:
- Pretty much every webstore of size will now list / sell everything, where 99% of the products are not in stock, and needs to be ordered - probably from the vendors in China, or whatever.
- Explosion in independent 3rd party sellers, within those stores. You now have to check that you're explicitly purchasing from the webstore you're visiting, and not some third party they allow to sell through them. Luckily some stores have become better at notifying the buyer that the item is being bought from someone else, and not the store.
- Acceptance of lookalike products.
Basically, it seems like all the stores are competing to be AliExpress and Temu now.
Then it is a question, why not buy directly from AliExpress. At least you know what you have paid for and there is implicit agreements that there are going to be no returns.
I am trying to buy a new Nintendo Switch, but it seems impossible.
Search results are polluted by refurbished products that you only realize are refurbished once you look at the details. This happens for me even after selecting "new" specifically.
In India, Amazon has been quite good IFF you have Prime. Deliveries are quite quick, returns and refund rules are clear, and always get processed if eligible. If you're a frequent user, it's well worth the subscription cost.
If you don't have Prime though, it's a different place altogether. But you don't have much of a choice - Flipkart (the other alternative) is worse in every way.
Amazon is a marketplace, and more and more different vendors came to that place selling cheaper, shady things. They seems to have an open door policy. It's somewhat understandable.
But that same strategy got adopted in many different places.
Decathlon on their website offer products from other vendors. It's really shady as they advertise hassle free returns everywhere but that only applies to products sold by them specifically, not to majority of products available in their shop.
Kaufland (if you're in US think Germany's Walmart) has the same thing going on.
The marketplaces in brand shops are completely annoying. If you choose to buy from Decathlon, you expect their coverage over all products, not some of them.
Only imagine the same in the physical shop, completely crazy trying to avoid falling into non-decathlon things along the display racks.
Unfortunately, a "marketplace" is precisely what I don't want from a lot of the commerce sites that include them on top of their "first party" inventory, and they're seemingly becoming ubiquitous.
This is happening everywhere, making a quick buck and completely ruining your reputation. The main Amazon competitor in The Netherlands bol.com has gone down the exact same path
Darty, Fnac, Leroy Merlin do the same. It’s impossible to go to a shop’s website and expect to buy their products. They’re all just copying Amazon in a cheaper, scratchier version.
It may be that it's area, or customer specific, but Amazon is still great here. I'm ordering a computer overnight, so I hope I don't eat my praise on this one, lol. As a household we spend several thousand a month on average, so maybe we get put in the "keep-em-happy" file? One thing is, we only order if it ships from Amazon; never with someone who handles their own shipping.
Payed for fast shipping for emergency cavity filling paste only to get it 3 days later than advertised. No excuses from the semi-chatbot-drone worker when confronted.
For a few years now I have made an effort to first try to find a local (in the neighborhood, city or country) seller who has a good reputation before even considering Amazon. In all cases, where I have found alternatives, I've had great experiences, and no issues.
The only thing I've noticed is the very big price difference between academic/technical books when bought on Amazon vs a local book store (40+%) in favour of Amazon. Bulk discounts play a part in that I assume.
I only buy cheap garbage from Amazon and check the reviews for the more pricey items there. It is not worth the hassle. Price from buying it somewhere more reliable is most definitely worth it. I attribute this to MBA types taking over. They care about metrics that are optimized for their promotions not for customer satisfaction.
The root of the problem is that they mixed the Amazon retail storefront (aka The Amazon people know) with the Amazon Marketplace used by the third party sellers. So when you buy something the whole thing works automatic and invisible to get the “best price”
Unless you make your own choice and going deep into the purchasing options you will end up in one of the 3 scenarios
- Product sold and shipped by Amazon
- Product sold by third party but shipped by Amazon
- Product sold and shipped by third party
I have never had a problem with the first category but the other two are always problematic, especially the third. You are on Amazon.de > you can end up buying from the US, UK, or China (so outside of the EU). Not just you will get hit by customs but good luck enforcing the mandatory 14 day return law.
I had issues with the first category too because of the commingle inventory perhaps. Counterfeit SD card sold and shipped by Amazon. Seems like a very common issue.
I was shopping for a specific jacket last week and a few different Amazon sellers had very different prices for an identical product. Still agree with your point though since I still got a base range of prices. I ended up going to the website of a clothing retailer instead.
Where are these horror stories coming from? I've bought thousands of things off amazon for the last 10 years and almost never have a problem, and the price is at least equal to someplace I'd drive to. Not only do I use prime deliveries, I also watch prime streaming, buy groceries through Fresh, and host things on AWS
Their return policies are really lenient too. I bought a computer monitor, didn't like it so I sent it back, bought another and liked it even less, sent it back. The third one I liked, all the returns didn't cost me a thing.
Just a few weeks ago, just be accident, I got a refund on a loaf of bread that had been dented, while I was getting service on something else. Nothing is perfect, but their online chat support has resolved any problem I've had, even if it took some effort.
I don't want to sound like an ad although I probably do, but what am I doing right? Do I somehow, instinctually, avoid products that will be trouble? If things were as bad as the comments suggest, I don't think amazon would be still in business. If this is enshittification, more please.
The ideas are correct, but the argument in the article… could use some improvement. In stage 1 ("good for users") Cory describes how the platform becomes bad for users. In stage 2 ("abusing users, good to businesses") he actually describes how Amazon is BAD to businesses. Not the best presentation of his fantastic "enshittification" term.
What bothers me more is Amazon limits the products you can see. When you search for a product type (say a USB Hub), it will show you constantly the same set of products. While you scroll, it repeats the products that are sponsored, sprinkling them here and there, and the mindless customer scrolls search results, seeing only the limited number of products Amazon wants to show you. Finally you‘ll order the one with the highest number of stars.
This is not a neutral listening of all available products. Although Amazon proposes has and knows all sorts of products. It will push the ones right in your face that it wants to promote.
So if you are into a purchase, do your research on other platforms first before you order on Amazon.
They also tend to show a very narrow selectio of items, if you search for a synonym of the product you're looking for you often end up finding other items that even contain the original search phrase in the item title and description.
Amazon was simply superb in the early 2000 which made them so popular and dominating that most people will still buy from them even if they are rubbish and predatory. Why should they improve when people use them anyway?
To add my voice here: I have never had problems with Amazon. And I'm ordering tons of very niche electronics stuff from them. Right now I have two PZEM-016 meters in front of me, connected to an RP2040-based FeatherWing board. All of that was delivered within 2-3 days, as expected, and at a price point that is the same or nearly the same as in other online retailers.
I got a fake product only once, a box with packing peanuts instead of a ZigBee relay. They refunded the cost right away.
They hit “day two” years ago in order to meet quarterly Wall Street analyst targets, which is why they didn’t end commingling inventory until recently.
When your stock price is so high that it out-values operations and out-paces innovation, and you need to provide value to your shareholders to retain your valuation, what can you do other than squeeze your revenue stream for more juice?
Hopefully Enshittification is just the dying throes of a megacorp before they implode - otherwise we are all screwed if this becomes the new normal.
in Japan I experience none of the problems that people in HN seem to have with Amazon in other countries. Never encountered fake products, return has always worked, and stuff that never arrived was also reimbursed. Maybe I'm an exception.
How is Japan's customer protection? Here in Australia it is enshrined in law that the seller, Amazon, must handle warranties and such for the expected life of the product.
Most likely Japan just have better customer protections. Amazon only able to sell open-nox and co-mingled knock-off crap because US regulators are toothless.
Louis Rossmann have a video about fake electrical fuses sold on Amazon US with almost half a million views. Literally the product that can burn your house to the ground:
Amazon works great for me. Everything from cheap Chinese stuff I want immediately to fresh produce in a couple of hours to grill grates. The return policy is good with simple instructions and I'm comfortable with the error rate.
I bought a book from amazon 5 days ago, specifically picking the new - not used - version. What got delivered was not just clearly used, but has a large patch of tape on the cover where there was a large tear.
They definitely tried to send me a used book as if it was new. I'm sick and tired of Amazon lying to me.
I don't use Amazon often, but as a fan of puzzle games, I really appreciate the UX (which regularly changes, so as to not get stale) of trying to buy something without inadvertently signing up for Prime.
At least it Germany it's mostly down to marketplace shenanigans. Ofc you can still get your refunds but now you sometimes get wrong articles. Return frauds are normalized and the only thing they seem to check before sending it out again is weight. You can't find brand items anymore because it's flooded with Chinese throwaway brands and Amazon fulfillment is just garbage... well at least the outsourced company in our region.
Amazon recently ruined Order Search for no reason at all. It used to be that it worked, showing matching recent orders. Now it shows altogether unrelated orders from years ago, for no reason at all except to ruin my experience.
I've been an Amazon customer since the were just a book store (in 1999). I buy a lot of stuff from them.
Just in the past three months, I've noticed a lot of changes. Orders are being lost, orders are being cancelled by them for lack of product, orders are being split, with no indication of the split -- showing all products delivered when the split portion is still in transit.
In the past, the customer could see the same order information that their Customer Support staff could see, but now we can't see as much. Recently, I had an order split three ways (three of the same item) without any notice. The shipment arrived with only one item, so I contacted Customer Support. The support rep spun on it for a while, and then told me I would receive the remainder of the shipment the next day. By the end of the call, it changed to two days. It finally arrived four days later, but that shipment also only had one item (of the three ordered). I tried contacting customer service again, but instead of letting me reach a human, Amazon forced me into an AI chat. The chatbot told me that my only option was to accept a refund for the missing (third) item. I repeatedly told it that I would rather receive the item, but it insisted that was impossible. So it refunded part of my purchase price. Two days later, I received the third item (with no shipping status updates of any kind), followed the next day by a demanding email from Amazon that I pay them for the item I had received (which I did do).
Even more recently, I ordered an m.2 SSD. While placing the order, I opted for the "green" option to get a little money back by not rushing them. Everything was fine with the order until the next day, when I got an email saying the charge to my (Amazon) card was declined. I checked the card, which still had $8,100 of credit, and I had just received and paid the ($1,900) bill the day before. I called Amazon (and reached a person!) -- the guy in the foreign call center had an accent so think that I had trouble understanding him, but he insisted that the issue was MY fault three times before I got him to consider that maybe it wasn't. He offered to try charging the order again, and it went through. I checked the order status while still on the call, and the "green" option was no longer there, so I cancelled the order and tried re-placing it, but there was no longer any "green" option, so I didn't re-place the order.
I think all of this nonsense is a consequence of Amazon deploying AI into their systems across all business functions. The last one was probably an AI trying to maximize their margins by depriving me of the (1%) "green" credit. Hopefully my actions helped "train" the AI that ripping off your customers will reduce your sales revenue.
I know this was a long rant, but at least in my case, Amazon's deployment of AI is going to reduce the amount of money they earn from me.
I don’t mind it at all, because it’s purposefully turning to shit. Degradation sounds slow natural. Like how a computer bought in 2005 that runs just as well as back then has seemed to have degraded 20 years later, no fault of its own.
I do have a hard time believing this author coined the term in 2022. I’ve had this phase as part of my vocabulary for much long than that to describe the same exact phenomenon, I know I didn’t invent it but it’s been around in the online software community at least. Maybe he claims ownership because he was the first to write about it, or maybe my memory is just failing me and he deserves the credit. Idk but that tidbit bothers me way more than the words. I don’t let vulgarity get in the way of having polite conversations, they’re not mutually exclusive in my opinion.
You are right. Looking at ngram it seems to have appeared around 2016. But it was even around in 1970s but perhaps in a different context. So it’s perhaps better to say that he popularised it.
If you want, you can translate to Latin and call it "faecefaction".
The key difference is that degradation can be a natural process, or a result of neglect, while faecefaction is a deliberate act of turning a product into crap, while knowing that the customer will continue buying for some time, due to inertia and / or lack of alternatives.
I agree with you -- I never use vulgar words, so I cannot use this word myself. That being said, maybe you saw this article being posted a few days ago: https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/ writing about the concept of "Market for Lemons". The last paragraph compares the two ideas:
> What makes the Market for Lemons concept so appealing (and what differentiates it in my mind from ens**tification) is that everyone can be acting reasonably, pursuing their own interests, and things still get worse for everyone. No one has to be evil or stupid: the platform does what’s profitable, sellers do what works, buyers try to make smart decisions, and yet the whole system degrades into something nobody actually wants.
(I don't know if Doctorow's concept really relies on malice.)
I agree that is vulgar but the word carries more meaning than degradation. I thought perhaps dilapidation might work but that also misses some of the nuance.
Degradation sounds passive, like something getting worse due to lack of care. Enshittification as a new word have the luxury of no baggage, so to me it perfectly captures the process of taking active, intentional steps to change stuff in a way that makes end user experience worse, but (maybe) product owner richer.
But "enshittification" has its own specific meaning which goes beyond existing terms (i.e. it's specific to degradation of platforms making money from two sides of the transaction).
I wish we had a better term for it, but it can't be replaced by just "degradation".
Enshittification captures a specific type of degradation - the inevitable deterioration of a product or service under an economic system that is obligated to secure ever larger profits. I like the fact that it is slightly vulgar because there is an element in this process that is revolting - the idea and acceptance that its fulfillment is guaranteed.
The vulgarity also carries with it higher odds of the term detaching from the intellectual sphere and into the common man, increasing awareness and hope of consumer pushback.
When the present-day is compared to the promises and hopes for big tech as the companies were starting, the word seems appropriate. We ain’t in Sunday school! Degradation doesn’t capture that many of the changes for the worst are willful and intended.
My P.O.V is that corporate double speak is prudish, distorts on purpose and overall is much worse for humanity.
Enshittenification is ugly but truthful.
I agree that the vulgarity is problematic, but the ugliness seems rather appropriate.
Degradation can happen due to inaction - that is not what enshittification is. Enshittification is the endgame of a platform where the owner stops courting buyers and sellers (in that order) and allocates all the profit to itself.
I agree, a conspiracy theorist would suggest it's a deliberate move to reduce the amount of people talking about it, in media, amongst friends etc.
There are some people who swear every other word when talking to friends and family. Fine, they'll talk regardless. But there's a significant number who don't, and they will thus avoid using "enshittification" in conversations, reducing the cultural awareness of it.
On holiday in Scotland, my DJI NEO drone clipped a tree and crashed—snapping the lower body casing. I ordered a replacement on Amazon UK, and it arrived the very next day at our Airbnb. Seamless and impressively fast service.
As for the article, it reads like a hit piece driven by envy. Perhaps it reflects the frustration that Britain no longer produces world-class, globally scaled internet companies—leaving its media to take petty swipes at the Americans who still do.
I bought a $120 book from Amazon a couple of months ago, internationally, and they sent the wrong book.
I told them, and they said they'd refund it, don't need to send it back, and they'd even add $15 credit.
The refund never arrived so a few weeks later I got in touch again and they said I need to send it back if I want a refund. They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings. I asked who I can complain to and they said nobody and closed the chat. I reopened it, restarted the refund, it was accepted and then 2 hours later I got an email saying that unless I sent them ID my refund would be rejected and that I can "no longer contact them" about this refund. I ignored that email, sent the book back and got the refund.
Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
That level of service would have been totally unheard of for Amazon 5 years ago.
I recently had a similar experience with Amazon. I bought a pair of AirPods but didn’t like them, so I returned them the next day. Amazon confirmed they’d received the package, but when the estimated refund date passed, I got a message saying they needed more information.
When I contacted customer service, they told me I had to send them a copy of my ID to process the refund. I was really frustrated; I’ve had this account for over 20 years and never had any issues before. I spoke with several representatives, but they all gave me the same response, and a few were even rude and aggressive, something I’d never experienced with Amazon before.
Since I didn’t want to share my ID, I decided to go through my credit card provider (Visa) instead and filed a claim. Visa refunded my money, but shortly after, I got an email from Amazon asking why I’d raised a Section 75 claim (the UK’s credit card protection scheme) and informing me that my account would be closed for fraudulent activity.
I replied with proof that they had received my return and never issued a refund. That was the last I ever heard from them, and the last time I bought anything from Amazon.
> They told me the previous CSR had lied to improve ratings.
If anything it feels like the second CSR who actually told you the truth was acting more in defiance of the system than the first one.
The moment amazon.de turns into this, im gone.
The only thing keeping me there is the no-nonsense, helpful, customer support.
Any issues i have are always resolved, so it still seems to be working over here.
.de promised to call me, never called. Split an order in three, used a bank account I had already removed from the system, then made me pay a fee three times when the money naturally could not be retrieved. One item in the order was a fake, when I returned it they claimed I kept it - thankfully I still had the receipt that I returned something, together with some stern words that was enough to end that.
Never buy from Amazon, especially not .de. Germany has a bunch of alternative online shops that are better.
> Germany has a bunch of alternative online shops that are better.
Such as?
I never ran into such problems with Amazon, but I would like to know the alternatives.
For electronics: Mindfactory, Galaxus, Coolblue, alternate, Jacob, Proshop, alza, computeruniverse.
Caseking and Alternate.de for PC components.
All of them are good for PC components :) But right, I forgot Caseking.
Had a similar (not as bad) experience on .de a while ago.
That was when I canceled my prime subscription which I had almost as long as it existed here.
Being subject to german laws sure helps there.
Well, germany has customer protection laws, but before amazon, customer service was always worse than in the US i would say.
Just think about Media markt customer service for example…
Amazon changed that by introducing US-style no-questions-asked 30 day returns etc… but nowadays they are slowly chipping away at that, 14 days is the the norm now, (which is the hard limit anyway, since being set into law a couple years ago)
But yes the customer friendliness is slowly being cut down, due to growing costs. Zalando (an online fashion retailer) has also reduced their return policy recently.
Amazon.de customer service has consistently been much better than anything else in Germany, so it's probably not the law.
... and not just the law but consumer protection agencies. The Verbraucherschutz does not mess around - break the law strategically and you will get banged up hard.
This is what Cory writes about: We need laws and regulations if we want to prevent enshittifiaction.
In the US these laws have been dismantled since the 70s (if I get the text correctly, I'm not expert on US labor law). And in Germany there is a chancellor who is pushing to increase the 40 work week (which still meant up to 50 hours) to a 48 hour work week - that's the change necessary to have Amazon (and others) treat their drivers and warehouse workers with more dignity. /s
> Another time I bought a Samsung Fold and it cracked down the middle. I told Amazon and they said they'll refund it under warranty. I sent it back and got a warning that if I return anything else in "non original condition" I'd be banned. Even though it was a warranty return.
I once ordered a new pair of Jeans, expensive ones because I wanted them to last, from Amazon and got an obviously used and ripped pair sent to me.
I sent it back, noted that in my reason for sending it back only to receive an email from them with the same sentiment as you got. Luckily I kept all the receipts (figuratively) and took a lot of photos and screenshots.
Reaching out to support they apologized profusely to me but still it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm sure it'll happen again sometime in the future.
Why would you go back to buy from their shop of you're sure it'll happen again?
It's not like Amazon is an actual monopoly for clothing.
> Another time
Why is there another time? I don't understand why someone would continue purchasing from a shop after the first experience.
Because it's still better than the alternatives. I recently ordered a small item from a specialist retailer. Payment by Paypal was easy enough (ethically questionable, yes, but faffing about with credit cards on the internet in 2025 is just a complete PITA not to mention insecure). But the delivery was a nightmare. It took weeks, to the point that I needed to change the delivery address. But customer service turned out to be an AI bot which ignored everything I wrote while confidently reassuring me that it had understood and was acting on it. In the end I had to cancel the whole purchase. A terrible experience, alas worse than anything I've ever had from the evil monopolist of Seattle.
They are in reverse chronological order. I only buy cheap crap from them now, like Ethernet cables, sd cards, books. Never anything over $20 and I never will
CSRs lying has been a serious problem at Amazon and it's astonishing that Amazon hasn't duly addressed it.
I don't think there even is a problem, from Amazon's point of view. CSRs can't tell you the truth ("we will try to avoid refunding you or will delay it as much as possible"), they can't stay quiet (because then delaying won't be as efficient) and they can't blame the company (because... well, they can't). So lying is basically all they can do.
In any high-churn job environment like customer support it's easier to assume people will leave rather than fire them. Most of the time you'll be right. That means there's no incentive to manage bad workers.
How did you even tell them that they sent the wrong book?
When an item I ordered is delivered as the wrong item or when it never arrives, I can only select from a list of items in order to inform them about the bad delivery and none of the items lists "item never arrived" or "wrong item arrived".
And there is no other way to complain about the delivery/item--no help chat, no email I can contact.
One of the return options is 'item did not arrive'. You can also select 'I need help with another issue' or something like that, and either chat with support and explain or request a call.
(At least, in the UK. Like sibling comment to yours it's the amazing support and returns that makes me shop at Amazon (.de in their case) - I don't recognise the disaster described elsewhere in thread and I probably wouldn't shops there!)
In Canada .ca site at least, it's getting harder and harder to even find how to get help.
To get to chat, there are maybe 20 clicks to do. It's a series of menus and the wrong answer at any point leads you back to the prior purchases page.
If you finally get to 'chat', it's a terrible AI which never helps. If you respond incorrectly, AI closes the chat or gives dead end answers.
Only after all of this, do you finally have the opportunity to chat to a person. Often this person has a poor command of the english language too.
I just call now. They've literally made it so calling is 1000x easier.
Amazon is just hilariously, horribly managed these days.
Off the top of my head I can't remember but something like I need help with an order, then click "something else" or ask the automated chat to put you through to someone.
Yeah - I think they’ve put a big focus on reducing returns over the last year. I bought a Quest 3 last year. One of the controllers totally packed in within half an hour - thumb stick permanently locked to full. Wanted to do an RMA.
Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods, it would have to be unused in the box, and that I should contact meta.
I contacted meta, who told me to go hang, as they don’t officially support Portugal, which is where Amazon Spain happily shipped it.
So it’s just sat in a box gathering dust since, and I now avoid using Amazon whenever possible. I had already ditched meta so frankly I should have known that I was going to step on a rake.
> Amazon told me to go hang, said I couldn’t return used goods
I don't buy it. Don't we have actual consumer protection laws here in europe? We can return anything we bought online in 14 days time, full refund, no questions asked.
That’s the law, yeah - and if the goods are faulty it’s actually up to two years.
But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws - I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain, and I’m having stuff shipped to Portugal, and Spanish consumer protection regs (which implement the EU regs) only protect consumers in Spain.
That was meta’s get-out, too.
I think their specific get out is that they’re Amazon Spain,
IANAL, but I don't think it matters. Any webshop in the EU must sell to all EU customers and they should provide the same warranty, etc. to all EU customers as if you were buying it in the country they are selling from (Spain in this case). The EU is a single market.
https://www.eccnet.eu/consumer-rights/what-are-my-consumer-r...
Amazon is violating EU consumer protection law here, but they probably do it because most customers will feel helpless and not sue them. If you do not want to sue them, the best thing is probably to file a complaint with the Portuguese consumer authority. It's really important to do this, because only when enough people do such a thing, a pattern can be established and they can warn or sue Amazon.
In my experience in the UK, Amazon is better than consumer protection laws, and miles better than other vendors. They won't question or require lots of information etc. to support things in however many years of warranty, or even outside of it.
Not to mention the standard is 30 day returns, more than double the legally mandated 14 for distance selling.
I don't understand why you were even talking to support - if it was clearly defective within half an hour (much less than 30 days) you could have just created a return yourself without talking to anybody?
Because it’s Amazon Spain and I live in Portugal - they only do return labels etc. for a collection point 200km from where I live, otherwise, you have to ship stuff back at your own expense. No option to automatically open a return.
It’s basically the Amazon uk returns process from 20 years ago.
They should repair it under warranty, period. If they cannot make a return label, you can send it back. IIRC they are also responsible for the shipping cost, but they can refund it afterwards when they are not able to create a return label.
I think your mistake might be that they are sticking to the letter of the law. Don't ask for your 14-day cool-off period, because strictly I think the product needs to be sealed (though many sellers are more lenient):
https://business.gov.nl/regulation/cancellation-period-sale/
Instead ask for a repair under warranty, which they are required to do as a seller. They cannot point you to the manufacturer, the seller is responsible for handling warranty for the first two years:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/product-g...
> But this is Amazon - they don’t need to follow consumer protection laws
No one needs to follow consumer protection laws if you don't sue to make them.
Yeah, I’m not spending hundreds of thousands of euro on legal fees to fight a trillion dollar company over a €300 piece of crud.
That’s part of their calculus, too.
You don't have small claims court? Here in Canada, it's $150 to register, you fill out the form yourself, no lawyers are allowed, and you argue your case in front of a judge.
(A company can have someone represent them, but if it's a lawyer, they must also have a rep. from the company there. and there can be no legalise, and the judge must explain anything to you if you ask)
There is no forced discoverability. EG, the other side cannot ask for all sorts of documents. You just include your evidence in the filing.
There is no ability for the company you sue, to compel costs if you lose.
For $150 you get a lot of joy out of hassling a company behaving like this. And amusingly, they still consult lawyers, and spend on a lot on lawyers. They can't be used in court, but they of course as a company consult legal experts.
I napkin mathed it, the one time I sued a company. I figured it cost them $25,000 to defend when I spent $150. If even a small percentage of people take them to task for breaking the law, they'll turn around quick.
Always use your enemies strengths as a weakness against them.
You should look at the process, but view if from the perspective of a hobby.
They do, but it’s only available to Portuguese citizens - I am a legally resident alien, but am excluded from that system, as it requires a citizen card to start a claim.
I would hope that consumer protection organizations can help you with that without having to engage lawyers: similarly, Amazon is not interested in long running legal battles if they see you are serious.
Why not make a chargeback on the card you used to pay?
That level of service is for on-boarding customers. Sounds crazy, but they had a multi year on-boarding plan. We are now on-boarded, so why would they keep funding an on-boarding program that accepts any and all returns? The on-boarding process was complete awhile ago.
Retention is the next program they’ll have to initiate, but no reason to finance this now as there are no competitors just yet.
Listen, when it was said that corporations are amoral and sociopathic, it was not a joke.
A huge part for me is how they handle employees and how that makes employees steal things.
My wife ordered an iPhone and we received a salt mill and a flashlight. Called them, they said sorry send it back. But then they would not return the money cause we did not return the phone. At that point Amazon accused us for betrayal and forced us to take a lawyer to get parts of the money back.
That was our last day of using Amazon or prime video.
A few weeks ago I bought a "new" coffee maker which arrived physically broken and with used coffee grounds in the hopper. I don't understand how this is even possible.
That's the last thing I'm buying on Amazon.
Amazon pre-COVID was amazing. But 2-day shipping is now 5+ day shipping. It's chock full of cheap/fraudulent junk. It's been interesting to watch it go downhill so fast.
That's return fraud, someone orders a new version of a product they have, put their old product in the new box and file a return immediately. Amazon probably doesnt take the time to check it or check it thoroughly. Goes back on the shelf and you receive it.
It's double-return-fraud.
Amazon shouldn't sell returned products as "new," but as "open box."
The other way it happens is co-mingling. Some vendor sends an "open box" product to Amazon as new, or a fake product, and Amazon ships it out when sold by Amazon since it considers goods to be fungible.
I stopped buying anything which goes in my body from eBay, Amazon, and similar after receiving a premium food product with very clearly fake packaging.
Man, I don't think this co-mingling thing was big or existed when I moved to a country that Amazon doesn't ship to directly almost 6 years ago.
Reading about it on HN makes me feel fortunate. I can't recall ever running into something like this back then.
> That's return fraud, someone orders a new version of a product they have, put their old product in the new box and file a return immediately.
Not necessarily. What’s more likely is that people try something, change their mind, and return it now used.
Amazon actually allows this for some products, as long as it’s still within the return period.
The problem is, they shouldn’t be shipping them back out as new.
Maybe local laws, but probably a third of what I buy on Amazon is sold as "refurbished" which, 90% of the time is just damaged packaging or products that spent a few minutes outside it.
They weigh it. That's all they do. I know someone that bought an open box camera off Amazon and received a piece of wood that weighed the same as the camera.
Maybe it's because I'm in WA, but my average Amazon deliver is <2 days. This "2-day shipping is now 5+ day shipping" is just outright untrue out here. I usually get stuff next day, free. Although I also do Amazon Day for that extra cashback on my card. That card has paid a mortgage payment or two since I got it a couple years ago.
And I still haven't gotten a single fraudulent item despite a steady stream of Amazon boxes to my house (I requested an extra recycle bin I get so many.)
I live in rural Michigan and almost all of my stuff is next day. Hell some stuff is even same day if you order early
Despite trying to instill a customer-centric culture, as soon as Bezos let his foot off the gas, his company just isn't as customer obsessed. Or, they changed their definition of customer from the buyer to the seller.
I dramatically lowered my buying from Amazon about 8 years ago, when I noticed that listings had reviews on items that were completely different than what was being listed. Apparently, sellers sell a known good product that gets good reviews, and then swap it out for something else, so that the new product can piggy back off of the good karma. Amazon just didn't shut this down for years. Also, when Fulfillment services by Amazon mixed the the official provider's inventory with 3rd party distributors and reseller inventories. Sometimes, people would get knock-offs. I knew then, Amazon would coast for at least a decade before the decline would be apparent.
I thought I'd buy more Shopify stock as a result. Dunno if I ever did.
> Amazon just didn't shut this down for years
They still haven’t - it’s trivially abused through variations. List a new variation, change photos, delist old variation = new “product” with old reviews/ratings.
They know this but they do not care. They feel they are indemnified because they aren’t the end seller.
The law should make them responsible for what they sell - otherwise what’s the value they add?
> Or, they changed their definition of customer from the buyer to the seller.
s/seller/shareholder/
I almost never buy from Amazon any more. For certain things it is difficult because Amazon has destroyed so much logistics and has such a stranglehold that a lot small/medium sized companies only sell through Amazon now. I ordered some kitchen gadget a few months ago from the company's own website, thinking I was avoiding Amazon, and it was delivered by an Amazon driver.
Another mind boggling aspect of Amazon’s review system is that it categorises multiple products / variations under one. So if you want to buy products X with variations X1, X2 and X3- the review page for product X1 will also show X2, X3 ratings bundled together. You don’t quite know the rating of X1 individually. You can filter reviews out by the overall rating is the aggregated view. I can’t believe how this is helpful for customers.
Also the variations are often not just cosmetic things like colour. Sometimes they are entirely different products.
I haven't read the article, but as a Swede I am stunned by the title.
I shop from Amazon a couple of times per month, with Prime subscription.
Delivery is always insanely fast (within 1-2 days), I always get exactly what I ordered, prices are always lowest compared to all competition, returns are convenient and human-free, and the additional Prime Videos is a nice bonus. I am honeslty worried of local Swedish business, becase they are getting the floor wiped. I haven't had a single issue some other people are mentioning.
My take is that it's because there is still competition in Sweden to keep them on their toes. Once they have decimated the Swedish high street, like they have in the UK, they will start cutting costs.
I've had crappy service on UK high streets long before Amazon. A keyboard I got from Tottenham Court Road stopped working within a week so I took it back in person. The shop manager tried to tell me I had to send it to the manufacturer. He backed down when I put the phrase "contractual relationship" into a sentence.
Currys? They're so well-known for immediately and always saying "talk to the manufacturer" it must be in their training manual right at the top
It was one of the many independent shops on that street. Curiously, the place is lately like a physical version of how Doctorow describes Amazon search results in the article: the same narrow selection of products, repeated at different prices.
I'm sceptical of Amazon's ability to do this in a country with strong consumer protection laws. If Amazon becomes the default for every online purchase in Sweden, and then enshittify, assuming there aren't other options to fall back on, the pressure will be pretty heavy, while in the US, that pressure basically doesn't exist.
Strange. I’ve only had really poor experiences with Amazon and Amazon deliveries in Sweden and really good ones in the US. In Sweden the delivery network seems full of other parties that frequently fail to show up at the last minute multiple times in a row. The translations are humorously bad and the selection is small.
I have the same experience (in the UK) and I have around 400 orders a year...
It's selection bias, people will focus on the one bad experience and ignore the 99% of time where it works as expected.
I think selection bias is a bit different, keyword being ignore. Maybe negativity bias.
I am in the USA and order lots of stuff from there too and have never once had any of these issues really. I return tons of stuff to them also. Anything you don’t like or need you can just return, as Amazon has the best return policy on Earth. I’m not happy that the world is moving to monoliths like Amazon, but I use what makes life easiest for me and saves me money.
Don't forget that Amazon is somewhat new in Sweden. I think we just haven't entered their enshittification phase here. (Swede too)
And because they’re new, we have plenty of homegrown internet retailers for competition. Personally, I avoid Amazon in favor of the others if at all possible, seems like there’s a really significant risk Amazon is going to wipe them out.
For me it's problematic though. Sometimes I want some small gadget, and I just can't find it elsewhere. The other day I wanted a female-female connector for network cables and I couldn't find it on my Swedish go-to place for tech stuff, Kjell&Co. Instantly found lots of alternatives on Amazon.
https://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_nkw=network+coupler
eBay might have some similar problems as Amazon (fly-by-night retailers from China etc), but at least it doesn't pretend otherwise.
Or from Denmark, but delivery is probably expensive. (Within-EU delivery costs is something I'd like to see the EU improve, to allow smaller businesses to compete internationally with Amazon etc.)
https://www.computersalg.dk/i/2335209/startech-com-cat5e-rj4...
Yeah, this happens everywhere. Amazon in Germany also became a lot crappier once they had a strong foothold in the market.
Even if they are still great in Sweden, don't buy from them, don't let them murder your local, healthy ecosystem. (If you think it's not healthy, wait until they have most of the market.)
Here in California, Amazon stopped honoring their shipping time "guarantees" years ago. They still say Prime is a two-day guarantee. When you order, they say delivery will take place within two days. Your order will have a scheduled delivery date reflecting that statement.
But later they'll quietly update the scheduled delivery date on your order. If you complain that a package hasn't arrived on time, they'll tell you to wait until it does arrive. If you ask for redress for the late delivery, they'll say no.
Sometimes you actually need to receive a birthday gift before attending the party, you know.
They've also stopped packing their goods in a way that prevents them from being damaged in transit. A book you order from Amazon today will arrive stuffed into a manila envelope that it can barely fit inside. The corners will be damaged.
I return all goods even slightly damaged, but take a pic, print it, and include a note.
I do so l, so that returns can see it arrrived in poor shape, not from it being returned.
But... saving 3 cents per package on a box, may be cheaper that an extra return out of 1000?
I imagine the original seller doesn't know (when only shipped but not sold by amazon), so too bad for them, and Amazon even removed the return option "box ok but product damaged".
So I guess much of the cost is born by others.
This is pretty much how it was in NA before they started going to crap.
One of my biggest annoyances is the exact same (crappy) product listed 300 times with different brands/names.
But hey, at least we still have extravagantly fast delivery times!
The enshitification guy needs to keep his brand alive apparently. 99% of the time Amazon and its delivery people deliver what I ordered on time and if there's ever a problem returns are easy.
What on earth is he talking about? Firstly, I find Amazon fine for goods that are hard to be faked (washing powder, books, etc...).
But the real shocker to me is:
> That means shopping anywhere other than Amazon has become substantially more inconvenient.
and
> We’re all still stuck to the platform, but we get less and less value out of it.
I've simply started buying all of my electronics, and other expensive goods from the manufacturer (D2C) or a reputable retailer in the space. My groceries I can order through my supermarket or one of the grocery focused platforms. They all offer simple free or cheap shipping at a convenient time. I think, to some extent, Amazon has helped this push for better/cheaper shipping.
> Break up with Amazon and delete your apps, and you will lose all the media you’ve ever bought from the platform.
Yes... but if you simply stop paying them you will keep them all? I have never bought a movie through Prime but I have some audio books which all work fine despite me no longer paying Audible.
All in all it seems like this guy has come up with some hypothesis of their master plan but the reality is that switching costs are low and Amazon doesn't hold a monopoly in any tangible way.
This article just gets worse and worse!
> you can’t stop enshittification by “voting with your wallet” (those votes are always won by those with the thickest wallets, and that’s the billionaires who made money by enshittifying everything)
Er... Amazon can't run with only the patronage of billionaires? What is he imagining, Elon Musk just buys a billion dollars a day from his mate Jeff? Obviously if the platform gets worse, customers will start switching (en masse) to the 85-90% of global ecommerce that Amazon doesn't control.
Do not ever buy anything safety-critical off Amazon. Fake electrical fuses linked in Louis Rossmann video are still for sale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
Or any food, or anything that you wear too close to your body that can be health hazzard due unsafe or toxic materials.
In some ways Amazon's entshittification is others' gain. For example, Amazon used to be a place you could easily buy and download music files legally. But they entshittified their music product to the point where it was impossible to use. Others stepped in selling lossless format downloads with a good buyer experience and made nice businesses out of them. The same will happen in all other areas previously dominated by Amazon.
I'm not sure how. Their warehouses and deliveries are very efficient. I'm sure it cost a fortune to build out. Hard to compete with without a ton of capital.
Can you recommend one?
I'm a huge fan of Bandcamp
Agreed,Bandcamp is good, very good.
Has anyone else ordered a pair of shoes only to open the box and find... one shoe?
Best I can guess someone's ordered two pairs, split one of the pairs across the two boxes, and sent both boxes back for two refunds and they've gone straight back on the shelf.
Amazon's search results have been garbage from a really long time, I often wonder how come the executives or the team behind it never experience that themselves. I now to Amazon only if I know exactly what brand I am going to buy before opening Amazon.
I also quit Prime couple of years ago. Hardly miss it.
Amazon search looks bad for us because it is designed to sell ads. Its goal is to make company pay the most money to show articles. Iirc, when this was proposed, Jeff Bazos said that this was the most stupid idea he ever heard. I think the reason why it was introduced, and why Executives don't want to change it, is that it generates a ton of money for Amazon. I'd personally love if in the end this would be the reason that Amazon stop making money and it would have been some short sighted greedy move. I'm afraid that advertisement, when it comes down to numbers, is just damn too profitable.
Unfortunately the store's primary revenue source seems to be from advertisers bidding on sponsored search result slots instead of the actual product sales.
Amazon kindle books search is designed to show you authors other than the name you search on, to increase sales of "in the style of" which could have been a tickbox item, but no: they know it irritates, but it makes them more money.
If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively. Even if you select the Web link author name, you get "in the style of"
> If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively.
I tried it:
- on the website from the home page
- in the Kindle category
- on my Kindle directly
All I got was books by Dickens.
There was the usual "sponsored" items but they are explicitly displayed as it.
I don't know if it's a country issue, but I don't have the same experience as you.
Furthermore, I read regularly on HN comments about how bad Amazon became, selling fake products, taking forever to send packages... Again, maybe a country issue, but here in France my experience is the same as it was ten years ago. It's even a bit better thanks to the number of Lockers that are available near my flat or my office and the fact that more and more refurbished products are offered.
I just did it on Web and got Emily Bronte, and Oscar Wilde as well as Dickens.
I did it for "Philip kerr" and I get Richard wake and mark oulton. John le carre and I get Andrew Brown.
These are "in the style of" clone authors.
I can see how annoying your experience must be in that case!
I don't know what (who?) caused this, but I'm certain that I don't want to have the same experience...
The Amazon-Basic version of Charles Dickens
If shitty Amazon experiences went from 0.1% of customers to 1% of customers, then almost everyone still has a good experience - but now people are much more likely to be at least within anecdote range of someone who has a bad experience.
I'm in France, too. I don't know about fake products, I rarely buy "premium" stuff on Amazon. However, a few months ago I received a bag sold as new which had clearly been used, since I found a face mask and a random receipt in one of the pockets.
One explanation is this is the standard rollout of Amazon. First they undercut all the local options, and then once the population embraces them they flip the switch.
Amazon has always been about cash flow over profits. So they don’t really need to make money if that’s not yet one of the goals.
Aside from A/B testing, there may be insufficient profit in the Francophonie, to justify stuffing the shop front with dreck. This is not an insult, it's an upside of not being monoglot anglophone.
> If type "Charles dickens" in search, there should be a way to get works by Dickens exclusively
Tried it. I got 100% Charles Dickens, with a clearly marked "Recently bought and rated" sponsored section in the middle.
Now, I did see Amazon completely hallucinating authors' names, but that mostly happened with small no-name authors or with translated names.
I am outside US and have used them to ship internationally because they are one of the rare retailers who will ship delivery duty paid, avoiding local UPS/FedEx/DHL offices charging 30-60 USD just to do customs processing (local ~30% customs fees still come on top of combined shipping and item prices). Their international shipping charges have gone bonkers recently though too (what used to be like $70 for an ultraportable laptop is now like $200+). Thus I am bound to Amazon.de more but there's a smaller selection.
I also temporarily sign up for Prime when I visit US (usually for a week), but recently, unless I order on Sunday of my arrival and deliver to one of their lockers, "2-day shipping" or even extra paid same-day-shipping won't arrive by Friday to my hotel (last few experiences in Boston, MA).
Due to only "delivered by Amazon" products having delivery-duty-paid option, I avoid some of the risk of new Amazon, but I need to be extra careful when shopping while in the US.
Has Amazon been forced to take responsibility for their third party sellers’ products anywhere yet (safety, environmental, counterfeit etc)?
Never had issues with Amazon, frequently shop.
Local shops are scams in my area: expensive, don’t take back items, limited selections, don’t have the right items and have to settle for less, time consuming, bad customer service, can have language requirements for some people at the time of disputes (but not when selling), the reviews of items are not available and a lot of them turn out to be bad, long waiting lines … Your complaints about online shopping remain with local shopping.
The benefits of online shopping for consumers are plenty and evident. The majority of products I bought online that I researched carefully have been solid.
> Local shops are scams in my area: expensive, don’t take back items, limited selections, don’t have the right items and have to settle for less, time consuming…
None of these are scams, you're misusing the word. You mean a worse shopping experience, not defrauding the customer.
I live in a country with the same problems, and everything here is so much more expensive, it absolutely deserves to be called a scam. Stuff such as books and electronics can easily be 2x as expensive locally as abroad.
Amazon in India is truly a miracle service. Affordable, has the largest range of products with quick and easy returns. I think it’s basically impossible to compete with it.
Still in step 1 there?
I missed out on what seems to be the deterioration over the last few years; I stopped using Amazon, some years ago, because I'd seen too many and consistent stories of the work lives of warehouse staff.
Amazon is my last resort nowadays, because some things are only sold there and on alibaba. If I only find a thing I want on amazon, I'll search again for the vendor name to see if they have a site of their own and if so buy it there instead
It does help me buy less stuff because the process is so annoying nowadays
Exactly. Some companies only sell through Amazon now. In those cases, I often just go without and the company loses the sale.
> Some companies only sell through Amazon now.
Which is probably because they don't have a choice.
> I often just go without and the company loses the sale.
Which is not helping the company in any way. Not that it is your fault, but confirming the point of the article.
The genious leadership at prime video thought it would be a good idea to introduce adds not only on the beginning of movies but also in the middle of it, with an extra paid option (on top of prime) to remove it. When an add appeared I got so frustrated I cancelled my prime subscription at that very moment. I wonder if they even considered/cared about brand reputation impact.
I canceled prime when they introduced ads. That means I no longer spend nearly $1k a year on other things from Amazon too.
They dont care. The mismatch in power between trillion dollar companies breaks the traditional accountability relationship between seller and buyer.
I've seen (somewhere on HN) it compared to soviet central planning committees: decisions are made by people so far removed from any actual situation on the ground and with so little accountability they have no hope of making correct ones, and then sooner or later, whatever they're in charge of collapses.
Sadly, brand reputation is a means to an end. If they lose the most demanding 5% of customers, while getting 10% more profit from the other 95%, that's a huge net win.
At least in the short term. But manager bonuses and promotions and the stock price are all based on the short term, aren't they?
I've noticed that the enshitifacation of e-commerce marketplaces has become a global problem. Here's what I've observed for the past 5 years or so:
- Pretty much every webstore of size will now list / sell everything, where 99% of the products are not in stock, and needs to be ordered - probably from the vendors in China, or whatever.
- Explosion in independent 3rd party sellers, within those stores. You now have to check that you're explicitly purchasing from the webstore you're visiting, and not some third party they allow to sell through them. Luckily some stores have become better at notifying the buyer that the item is being bought from someone else, and not the store.
- Acceptance of lookalike products.
Basically, it seems like all the stores are competing to be AliExpress and Temu now.
Then it is a question, why not buy directly from AliExpress. At least you know what you have paid for and there is implicit agreements that there are going to be no returns.
I am trying to buy a new Nintendo Switch, but it seems impossible. Search results are polluted by refurbished products that you only realize are refurbished once you look at the details. This happens for me even after selecting "new" specifically.
I believe this is because Nintendo pulled out of Amazon for Switch 2.
In India, Amazon has been quite good IFF you have Prime. Deliveries are quite quick, returns and refund rules are clear, and always get processed if eligible. If you're a frequent user, it's well worth the subscription cost.
If you don't have Prime though, it's a different place altogether. But you don't have much of a choice - Flipkart (the other alternative) is worse in every way.
side note:
Amazon is a marketplace, and more and more different vendors came to that place selling cheaper, shady things. They seems to have an open door policy. It's somewhat understandable.
But that same strategy got adopted in many different places.
Decathlon on their website offer products from other vendors. It's really shady as they advertise hassle free returns everywhere but that only applies to products sold by them specifically, not to majority of products available in their shop.
Kaufland (if you're in US think Germany's Walmart) has the same thing going on.
The marketplaces in brand shops are completely annoying. If you choose to buy from Decathlon, you expect their coverage over all products, not some of them. Only imagine the same in the physical shop, completely crazy trying to avoid falling into non-decathlon things along the display racks.
The UX on Decathlon's website was never good, but since they opened the marketplace, it's worse than ever.
Unfortunately, a "marketplace" is precisely what I don't want from a lot of the commerce sites that include them on top of their "first party" inventory, and they're seemingly becoming ubiquitous.
This is happening everywhere, making a quick buck and completely ruining your reputation. The main Amazon competitor in The Netherlands bol.com has gone down the exact same path
Darty, Fnac, Leroy Merlin do the same. It’s impossible to go to a shop’s website and expect to buy their products. They’re all just copying Amazon in a cheaper, scratchier version.
It may be that it's area, or customer specific, but Amazon is still great here. I'm ordering a computer overnight, so I hope I don't eat my praise on this one, lol. As a household we spend several thousand a month on average, so maybe we get put in the "keep-em-happy" file? One thing is, we only order if it ships from Amazon; never with someone who handles their own shipping.
Payed for fast shipping for emergency cavity filling paste only to get it 3 days later than advertised. No excuses from the semi-chatbot-drone worker when confronted.
For a few years now I have made an effort to first try to find a local (in the neighborhood, city or country) seller who has a good reputation before even considering Amazon. In all cases, where I have found alternatives, I've had great experiences, and no issues.
The only thing I've noticed is the very big price difference between academic/technical books when bought on Amazon vs a local book store (40+%) in favour of Amazon. Bulk discounts play a part in that I assume.
> Bulk discounts play a part in that I assume.
Potentially also threats — Amazon demands the discount, with the threatened alternative being they won't stock any of the publisher's books.
I only buy cheap garbage from Amazon and check the reviews for the more pricey items there. It is not worth the hassle. Price from buying it somewhere more reliable is most definitely worth it. I attribute this to MBA types taking over. They care about metrics that are optimized for their promotions not for customer satisfaction.
The root of the problem is that they mixed the Amazon retail storefront (aka The Amazon people know) with the Amazon Marketplace used by the third party sellers. So when you buy something the whole thing works automatic and invisible to get the “best price”
Unless you make your own choice and going deep into the purchasing options you will end up in one of the 3 scenarios
- Product sold and shipped by Amazon
- Product sold by third party but shipped by Amazon
- Product sold and shipped by third party
I have never had a problem with the first category but the other two are always problematic, especially the third. You are on Amazon.de > you can end up buying from the US, UK, or China (so outside of the EU). Not just you will get hit by customs but good luck enforcing the mandatory 14 day return law.
I had issues with the first category too because of the commingle inventory perhaps. Counterfeit SD card sold and shipped by Amazon. Seems like a very common issue.
Amazon is a data & server company disguised as an online store.
I use Amazon to get the base price and any reviews and then search elsewhere.
Often the same sellers or manufacturers will offer the same product with the same price but with cheaper shipping on eBay.
I was shopping for a specific jacket last week and a few different Amazon sellers had very different prices for an identical product. Still agree with your point though since I still got a base range of prices. I ended up going to the website of a clothing retailer instead.
Prime Video with ads has become a trash place. I don't use it anymore. And stopped prime membership too.
That's the free market so many people in HN praise.
Amazon is so dead to me. I may buy one or two items a year. There are so many better options where you can better ensure quality.
Where are these horror stories coming from? I've bought thousands of things off amazon for the last 10 years and almost never have a problem, and the price is at least equal to someplace I'd drive to. Not only do I use prime deliveries, I also watch prime streaming, buy groceries through Fresh, and host things on AWS
Their return policies are really lenient too. I bought a computer monitor, didn't like it so I sent it back, bought another and liked it even less, sent it back. The third one I liked, all the returns didn't cost me a thing.
Just a few weeks ago, just be accident, I got a refund on a loaf of bread that had been dented, while I was getting service on something else. Nothing is perfect, but their online chat support has resolved any problem I've had, even if it took some effort.
I don't want to sound like an ad although I probably do, but what am I doing right? Do I somehow, instinctually, avoid products that will be trouble? If things were as bad as the comments suggest, I don't think amazon would be still in business. If this is enshittification, more please.
Title suggestion - add "(Cory Doctorow)". His being the author is much more significant than the fact that his article was published in The Guardian.
The ideas are correct, but the argument in the article… could use some improvement. In stage 1 ("good for users") Cory describes how the platform becomes bad for users. In stage 2 ("abusing users, good to businesses") he actually describes how Amazon is BAD to businesses. Not the best presentation of his fantastic "enshittification" term.
What bothers me more is Amazon limits the products you can see. When you search for a product type (say a USB Hub), it will show you constantly the same set of products. While you scroll, it repeats the products that are sponsored, sprinkling them here and there, and the mindless customer scrolls search results, seeing only the limited number of products Amazon wants to show you. Finally you‘ll order the one with the highest number of stars.
This is not a neutral listening of all available products. Although Amazon proposes has and knows all sorts of products. It will push the ones right in your face that it wants to promote.
So if you are into a purchase, do your research on other platforms first before you order on Amazon.
They also tend to show a very narrow selectio of items, if you search for a synonym of the product you're looking for you often end up finding other items that even contain the original search phrase in the item title and description.
It's very very frustrating.
Amazon was simply superb in the early 2000 which made them so popular and dominating that most people will still buy from them even if they are rubbish and predatory. Why should they improve when people use them anyway?
You should read the article. :)
It's behind a pay wall
No it's not?! The guardian does not have a pay wall. They ask for you to subscribe put you can simply refuse.
It's easy to mistake it for a paywall, an enormous wall of text telling you to pay some money.
Actually no - there's a "please help fund us" but you can read without paying
Ah yes that famous paywall at TheGuardian.com
To add my voice here: I have never had problems with Amazon. And I'm ordering tons of very niche electronics stuff from them. Right now I have two PZEM-016 meters in front of me, connected to an RP2040-based FeatherWing board. All of that was delivered within 2-3 days, as expected, and at a price point that is the same or nearly the same as in other online retailers.
I got a fake product only once, a box with packing peanuts instead of a ZigBee relay. They refunded the cost right away.
They hit “day two” years ago in order to meet quarterly Wall Street analyst targets, which is why they didn’t end commingling inventory until recently.
When your stock price is so high that it out-values operations and out-paces innovation, and you need to provide value to your shareholders to retain your valuation, what can you do other than squeeze your revenue stream for more juice?
Hopefully Enshittification is just the dying throes of a megacorp before they implode - otherwise we are all screwed if this becomes the new normal.
in Japan I experience none of the problems that people in HN seem to have with Amazon in other countries. Never encountered fake products, return has always worked, and stuff that never arrived was also reimbursed. Maybe I'm an exception.
How is Japan's customer protection? Here in Australia it is enshrined in law that the seller, Amazon, must handle warranties and such for the expected life of the product.
Most likely Japan just have better customer protections. Amazon only able to sell open-nox and co-mingled knock-off crap because US regulators are toothless.
Louis Rossmann have a video about fake electrical fuses sold on Amazon US with almost half a million views. Literally the product that can burn your house to the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
Did Amazon US at least pulled these off store? Nope.
Amazon works great for me. Everything from cheap Chinese stuff I want immediately to fresh produce in a couple of hours to grill grates. The return policy is good with simple instructions and I'm comfortable with the error rate.
I bought a book from amazon 5 days ago, specifically picking the new - not used - version. What got delivered was not just clearly used, but has a large patch of tape on the cover where there was a large tear.
They definitely tried to send me a used book as if it was new. I'm sick and tired of Amazon lying to me.
I don't use Amazon often, but as a fan of puzzle games, I really appreciate the UX (which regularly changes, so as to not get stale) of trying to buy something without inadvertently signing up for Prime.
Took me a second to realize this apparent praise is anything but.
At least it Germany it's mostly down to marketplace shenanigans. Ofc you can still get your refunds but now you sometimes get wrong articles. Return frauds are normalized and the only thing they seem to check before sending it out again is weight. You can't find brand items anymore because it's flooded with Chinese throwaway brands and Amazon fulfillment is just garbage... well at least the outsourced company in our region.
It may be more rubbish than it was 10 years ago ... but it still beats out 9 out of 10 other online stores, at least in the country I live in.
When the bear is hunting after your your group of friends, you don't have to be the fastest runner, it is sufficient to not be the slowest one.
Amazon recently ruined Order Search for no reason at all. It used to be that it worked, showing matching recent orders. Now it shows altogether unrelated orders from years ago, for no reason at all except to ruin my experience.
enshittification commentary is also enshittifying
This is capitalism, profit over human needs, what's the surprise here?
I've been an Amazon customer since the were just a book store (in 1999). I buy a lot of stuff from them.
Just in the past three months, I've noticed a lot of changes. Orders are being lost, orders are being cancelled by them for lack of product, orders are being split, with no indication of the split -- showing all products delivered when the split portion is still in transit.
In the past, the customer could see the same order information that their Customer Support staff could see, but now we can't see as much. Recently, I had an order split three ways (three of the same item) without any notice. The shipment arrived with only one item, so I contacted Customer Support. The support rep spun on it for a while, and then told me I would receive the remainder of the shipment the next day. By the end of the call, it changed to two days. It finally arrived four days later, but that shipment also only had one item (of the three ordered). I tried contacting customer service again, but instead of letting me reach a human, Amazon forced me into an AI chat. The chatbot told me that my only option was to accept a refund for the missing (third) item. I repeatedly told it that I would rather receive the item, but it insisted that was impossible. So it refunded part of my purchase price. Two days later, I received the third item (with no shipping status updates of any kind), followed the next day by a demanding email from Amazon that I pay them for the item I had received (which I did do).
Even more recently, I ordered an m.2 SSD. While placing the order, I opted for the "green" option to get a little money back by not rushing them. Everything was fine with the order until the next day, when I got an email saying the charge to my (Amazon) card was declined. I checked the card, which still had $8,100 of credit, and I had just received and paid the ($1,900) bill the day before. I called Amazon (and reached a person!) -- the guy in the foreign call center had an accent so think that I had trouble understanding him, but he insisted that the issue was MY fault three times before I got him to consider that maybe it wasn't. He offered to try charging the order again, and it went through. I checked the order status while still on the call, and the "green" option was no longer there, so I cancelled the order and tried re-placing it, but there was no longer any "green" option, so I didn't re-place the order.
I think all of this nonsense is a consequence of Amazon deploying AI into their systems across all business functions. The last one was probably an AI trying to maximize their margins by depriving me of the (1%) "green" credit. Hopefully my actions helped "train" the AI that ripping off your customers will reduce your sales revenue.
I know this was a long rant, but at least in my case, Amazon's deployment of AI is going to reduce the amount of money they earn from me.
The author's laundry list of fixes are already formally done, most of things the author wants to treat as fraud are already treated as fraud.
Indeed. Seems more like a hit piece to me. Amazon is a company the Guardian often likes to pick on.
Maybe I'm prudish, but I really dislike the term 'enshittification'. It sounds ugly, and it makes what would otherwise be polite discussions vulgar.
'Degradation' seems to carry most (all?) of the same meaning and doesn't have those downsides.
I don’t mind it at all, because it’s purposefully turning to shit. Degradation sounds slow natural. Like how a computer bought in 2005 that runs just as well as back then has seemed to have degraded 20 years later, no fault of its own.
I do have a hard time believing this author coined the term in 2022. I’ve had this phase as part of my vocabulary for much long than that to describe the same exact phenomenon, I know I didn’t invent it but it’s been around in the online software community at least. Maybe he claims ownership because he was the first to write about it, or maybe my memory is just failing me and he deserves the credit. Idk but that tidbit bothers me way more than the words. I don’t let vulgarity get in the way of having polite conversations, they’re not mutually exclusive in my opinion.
You are right. Looking at ngram it seems to have appeared around 2016. But it was even around in 1970s but perhaps in a different context. So it’s perhaps better to say that he popularised it.
If you want, you can translate to Latin and call it "faecefaction".
The key difference is that degradation can be a natural process, or a result of neglect, while faecefaction is a deliberate act of turning a product into crap, while knowing that the customer will continue buying for some time, due to inertia and / or lack of alternatives.
I agree with you -- I never use vulgar words, so I cannot use this word myself. That being said, maybe you saw this article being posted a few days ago: https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/ writing about the concept of "Market for Lemons". The last paragraph compares the two ideas:
> What makes the Market for Lemons concept so appealing (and what differentiates it in my mind from ens**tification) is that everyone can be acting reasonably, pursuing their own interests, and things still get worse for everyone. No one has to be evil or stupid: the platform does what’s profitable, sellers do what works, buyers try to make smart decisions, and yet the whole system degrades into something nobody actually wants.
(I don't know if Doctorow's concept really relies on malice.)
I agree that is vulgar but the word carries more meaning than degradation. I thought perhaps dilapidation might work but that also misses some of the nuance.
I think it’s perfect. It captures the vulgarity present in the intention.
I always think of it as the "Perez plateau"[1], but I will grant that this is less catchy.
[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Phases-of-the-S-Curve-Pe...
Degradation sounds passive, like something getting worse due to lack of care. Enshittification as a new word have the luxury of no baggage, so to me it perfectly captures the process of taking active, intentional steps to change stuff in a way that makes end user experience worse, but (maybe) product owner richer.
I understand where you're coming from and agree.
But "enshittification" has its own specific meaning which goes beyond existing terms (i.e. it's specific to degradation of platforms making money from two sides of the transaction).
I wish we had a better term for it, but it can't be replaced by just "degradation".
Enshittification captures a specific type of degradation - the inevitable deterioration of a product or service under an economic system that is obligated to secure ever larger profits. I like the fact that it is slightly vulgar because there is an element in this process that is revolting - the idea and acceptance that its fulfillment is guaranteed.
The vulgarity also carries with it higher odds of the term detaching from the intellectual sphere and into the common man, increasing awareness and hope of consumer pushback.
When the present-day is compared to the promises and hopes for big tech as the companies were starting, the word seems appropriate. We ain’t in Sunday school! Degradation doesn’t capture that many of the changes for the worst are willful and intended.
My P.O.V is that corporate double speak is prudish, distorts on purpose and overall is much worse for humanity. Enshittenification is ugly but truthful.
I agree that the vulgarity is problematic, but the ugliness seems rather appropriate.
Degradation can happen due to inaction - that is not what enshittification is. Enshittification is the endgame of a platform where the owner stops courting buyers and sellers (in that order) and allocates all the profit to itself.
"Enshittification" captures the concept that the degradation was knowing and willful, not accidental.
> It sounds ugly, and it makes what would otherwise be polite discussions vulgar.
The impacts to consumers are ugly, so it's only fair to use ugly language to describe it.
American English prefers more slang in general. The context here is largely American.
I think we're well past 'degredation', enshittification is abuse at the end users cost.
Isn't that the point, though?
Degradation has a generic meaning.
When you say enshittification, people know exactly what you mean.
Exactly. Degradation can occur for many reasons.
Enshittification is a deliberate kind of degradation to juice a metric.
That metric is never “customer satisfaction”
I agree, a conspiracy theorist would suggest it's a deliberate move to reduce the amount of people talking about it, in media, amongst friends etc.
There are some people who swear every other word when talking to friends and family. Fine, they'll talk regardless. But there's a significant number who don't, and they will thus avoid using "enshittification" in conversations, reducing the cultural awareness of it.
Not only that, if someone has such a poor grasp of English they probably have little of value to say.
Enshittification was coined by Cory Doctorow who has been writing and publishing for decades and won plenty of awards.
I don't always agree with what he says, but I'm pretty sure he has a pretty good grasp of English and plenty of valuable things fo say.
This article is about enshittification not Amazon
Doesn't sound like it. Entire article was specifically about the enshittification of Amazon
On holiday in Scotland, my DJI NEO drone clipped a tree and crashed—snapping the lower body casing. I ordered a replacement on Amazon UK, and it arrived the very next day at our Airbnb. Seamless and impressively fast service.
As for the article, it reads like a hit piece driven by envy. Perhaps it reflects the frustration that Britain no longer produces world-class, globally scaled internet companies—leaving its media to take petty swipes at the Americans who still do.
The author lives in the US.
“The Taj Mahal probably doesn’t exist because I haven’t seen or experienced it”.