[mrandish]

I have no conceptual issue with Amazon serving ads against search terms. My big issue with Amazon search is that they intentionally made it much less useful by removing any ability to group words into one term with quotes or exclude any term with minus. These were working features of Amazon search that had long been there (and are probably still there in the code).

With the sheer number of products and the proliferation of feature or compatibility requirements buyers have to match, removing this functionality basically breaks Amazon search. Just try finding finding an LED bulb of a certain wattage that's dimmable. Every seller of non-dimmable bulbs puts the words "Not Dimmable" in their description to reduce returns. Amazon search will return all of those, with the listings I want buried somewhere in that flood - all because they've arbitrarily chosen to disable the standard, well-understood way of solving this common problem. The only solution is using an external search engine and limiting it to Amazon.com.

[oofManBang]

> I have no conceptual issue with Amazon serving ads against search terms.

I do. Ads have zero positive. They lower everyone's quality of life and stuff our heads full of useless crap like brand awareness. Truly a cancer on society in every conceivable way.

[mrandish]

I agree ads are annoying and I wish they weren't there (and for me, they're mostly not because: uBlock Origen). My point was that conceptually in-store advertising has been a thing for over a hundred years. Retailers have always merchandised their inventory.

However, breaking existing basic functionality like Search with the specific intention of making it harder and take longer for users to find what they want goes beyond annoying to malicious.