[colinsane]

i pay for the effects of questionable ad platform practices far more directly anytime i shop online. Amazon's "sponsored" product listings which forces sellers to compete away all their margins -- but not in the historic "competition leads to lower prices" but "competition leads to a greater take for Amazon" sense -- and makes the actual products i'm looking for arbitrarily harder to find.

the fact that the in your face malpractices are so foregranted that people reach for indirection or edge cases when throwing shade at the ad industry just highlights how one-sided the battle's become.

[ocdtrekkie]

The reason I dislike whataboutism is that it's so easily dismissed: I think we should regulate both bad practices! Both companies are a blight on our society and we should enforce our existing laws to deal with them.

However I do feel Google's cost is more universally applicable. Tons of product types aren't commonly procured via Amazon: All business types, whether products or services, end up paying the Google tax.

[colinsane]

i didn't mean to be what-about-ist. from my perspective there's a huge, glaring, impossible thing to miss right in front of us, and you reached specifically to the indirect issue. from my perspective, that's you being what-about-ist (ignoring the blatant bad thing in favor of the more distant bad thing).

anyway, i don't disagree with the rest. just feel that being called out for whataboutism here is a bit unfair.