Here are some characteristics of buying something on Amazon:

1. everything is one item of a SKU, which has many items
2. all items of a SKU are interchangeable
3. you can see a lot of information about each SKU, instantly, before you buy it
4. you can see a lot of competing items
5. you can see the exact price of the thing you’re buying, and the prices of its competitors
6. you can even compare the price on Amazon to the price elsewhere, instantly
7. the price on Amazon is the same for everyone and there is no haggling¹
8. you do not have, are not expected to have, and cannot have a relationship with the seller, beyond perhaps “I like/dislike this brand”
9. you can see a ton of people’s reviews of the item (though, granted, many are fake)
10. the item is almost always in stock, and if you don’t buy it today, you can buy it tomorrow

(we haven’t even gotten to “the prices are cheap” and “shipping is quick” because I don’t even think those are the weirdest things here!)

It’s not just Amazon; Wal-mart, Target, Giant Eagle, Safeway, even most retail stores like the Gap follow most of these rules. They’re somewhat eroded (hard to see as much information/reviews about this Gap T-shirt when you’re in person, less often in stock) but mostly there.

But compare this to all other situations where you buy and sell:

• buying a house: not one of a sku, can’t see that much information, often can’t see the exact price, there is haggling, there are no reviews, they go fast
• hiring a contractor: sort of one of a sku (“plumbers”) but they’re not interchangeable, can’t see a lot of information, can’t see the exact price, can’t easily compare, there may be haggling, you’ll have a relationship, and they’re not very available
• hiring an employee: not one of a sku, not interchangeable, can’t see much information, can’t easily see the relevant competition, can’t know their price, tons of haggling, long term relationship, hard to see many reviews, they go fast (I think this one breaks all the Amazon Weirdness rules!)
• getting a job: actually the exact same as “hiring an employee”
• buying a car: unfortunately there is haggling, can be hard to compare the exact thing unless you want a very available car, not always in stock
• buying a collectible thing on eBay: not one of a sku, can’t see much information or reviews
• buying a specialized piece of equipment like an MRI machine: hard to see a lot of competing items, might have a relationship with the seller, hard to compare prices, not often in stock

And compare to most of human history! Until, idk, post-WWII I think this was not largely the case, and you’d do most of your shopping for “whatever was around locally”

unfortunately:

You’ll encounter Amazon-type purchases early in life; as soon as you can buy candy from the nearby drugstore, you start to think of commerce as a series of Amazon-type transactions. You only encounter non-Amazon-type transactions later.

Even more unfortunately, these “non-Amazon-type” transactions are the ones that really matter. Some of them will be in magnitude of $10k or 100k, while optimizing all your Amazon/Safeway/Target/Aldi purchases combined might make you a few thousand.

so what?

I guess just:

• beware of this?
• don’t over-optimize on the Amazon-type purchases, they don’t matter that much
• don’t be weirded out when you have to hire a contractor, you have two options and one says $15k and the other says $20k, and then they finish the job and charge you $25k and you can’t really say no
• try not to rage at the world when your most important purchases are not Amazon-type