Black Friday is used to dump loss leaders, over runs and special order low function items that look like more expensive products. I have yet to ever buy anything offered on these sales.
Edit: There's plenty of info available regarding my statement. Here's a few links.
Besides the doorbusters, they had limited stocks of rare items too. It'd be like if Best Buy had a sale two years ago on Nvidia GPUs at 40% off retail. So you had the scalpers in the early days of eBay fighting with the parents who needed Christmas presents, on items you couldn't get anywhere else, from Playstations to Tickle Me Elmos.
On second thought, it's probably best that the internet killed it. People are wild.
Used to be the time of the year to stock up on consumables for MTB riders too. Tyres, brake pads, pedals, grips, and anything that gets consumed/exhaussted during a year. Nowadays if you use any price tracker, you can see it's all a scam.
I don’t even grant the OP claim for Amazon. I scrolled Amazon’s deals and found all sorts of good discounts on good purchases from power banks to blenders.
I think everyone is just getting more spoiled and more likely to commiserate with others online about it.
I just bought a vacuum I'd been eyeing for a few months for 40% off. Clearly it's not all "bad deals". BTW it works great is a lot better than my last roomba knock off. The key item is "use your brain and don't give into base buyer instinct"
I used to pick up 100-packs of CD-R and DVD-Rs from Circuit City for like $10 on Black Friday. That was like a 60-90% discount.