Pretty much this, yeah. I buy all my tech stuff at Amazon because I know if breaks down within 2 years, they will refund or replace it within a simple 5 minute livechat.

Another experience: my (second-hand) Kindle Paperwhite suddenly started to displaying ads. It had never done this and I had specifically bought an ad-less version. Go to Amazon, open livechat - fixed within a few minutes. Another company would have probably told me tough luck and to buy the ad-removal.

Amazon did not fool me. There was a brief period, nearly a decade ago, when the there was a recession and Amazon was expanding beyond books when Amazon was great for long tail items both due to availability and price. I used it to purchase a twenty-two foot pressure washer wand and a heater coil for the dryer and replacement GE water filter cartridges and ink cartridges for the Designjet 750C and a sun roof seal for the Montero Sport. I used Amazon as an alternative to buying retail or from an SEO optimized website. I always comparison shopped.

These days, the only time I don't comparison shop agianst Amazon is when I know that there isn't likely to be a better deal...and the sum total of that is pretty much going to Amazon for my a digital download of TurboTax every April. I don't have Prime but it still ships immediately. Generally, if I am making a long tail purchase, I start with eBay due to its better transparency, straight forward search, and less misalignment between its economic interests and mine. For electronics, I'll probably just buy from NewEgg because of how bad Amazon's search sucks and because it's free shipping is freer as in "beer" than Prime's $99...which of course applies to Prime items but not not-Prime items and to me, it's not worth the brain cells personally and the five minutes economically to figure out which is the best value SSD...and if I want it fast, there's a Best Buy up the road...and a Walmart.

In fairness, I find returning anything to be a hassle but since I have a brother in law who returns annuals to Home Depot at the end of spring, I know some people arrange their lives around it. Anyway, if something really sucks, I can chargeback.

That's funny because eBay is horrible for comparison shopping, and imho just as hard to determine knock-off products vs genuine.

Though I do also use NewEgg, which irks me nearly as much as Amazon, in that I always reduce down to the products sold by amazon, same on newegg... I don't want to deal with all the reseller. If Amazon stocks the product, odds are at least the product line is okay. The only place I get bit is misc adapters, some are great, others have a weird fit. That includes Amazon Basics products which are often hit or miss.

At one level, I agree that there isn't much difference betwee Amazon and Ebay in regard to knockoffs. On a different level, I find it easier to evaluate offers on Ebay because of the information it provides regarding sellers. Knowing that the item ships from China is a datapoint. Knowing that the particular seller has sold 247 from the listing is a data point that relates to the seller's rating.

The experience you describe regarding Amazon Basics pretty much sums it up. Amazon puts its name on products that are crap because it is in their interest and despite their interest clearly not aligning with mine. Ebay avoids the temptation by not putting their name on products. If it's crap, it's because of the seller not Ebay.

Considering the hassle I had when getting a laptop repaired that was not bought on Amazon (Lenovo refused to repair a display that no longer turned on because the plastic guide of one USB-slot fell out as well, and the vendor tried to to fuck us over by not taking it back/exchanging it; until I made a stink on social media), my next laptop will almost certainly be bought from Amazon exactly because of the service I saw them provide in similar cases (and it will certainly not be a Lenovo laptop. Never again). Only not if it is a special model bought from the producer, like System76 or something like that.

But that is also because counterfeit goods are less of a problem with Laptops. For many other things Amazon has a real problem there. It's okay to be a bit more expensive if the service is good, it is not okay when I have to be one the lookout for fakes when buying there.

And for the site I have that links to Amazon offers, all the scam offers that are or at the very least were active there ("send a mail to [email protected] before buying") were a real problem as well.