[dragonwriter]

> How can they NOT have fixed this after 20 years?

Maybe because they are dominating internet retailing so much that they don't feel any need to, largely through low prices achieved through (1) narrow margins, and (2) not doing anything that isn't aimed at reducing long term costs per sale.

You think it sucks, I think it sucks -- but if empirically its working good enough and fixing it is a cost without a clear payoff for them, why do it?

[ma2rten]

Less friction always leads to better conversion. Amazon knows that, that is why they have one click orders.

Improving their search would mean that more people find what they want to buy. That means more sales, PERIOD.

[dragonwriter]

> Improving their search would mean that more people find what they want to buy.

Sure, improving their search would mean that more people find what they were initially planning to buy without seeing as much other stuff. Of course, offline retail experience has been that that's generally a good thing for premium venues, its usually exactly the exact opposite of what is good for sales in discount venues.

And, even to the extent that it might be a net gain -- I suspect it would, overall -- its quite easy to believe it might not (despite 20 years) have ever reached the level of being the lowest-hanging fruit in terms of benefit/cost ratio.