And sometimes in the same listing! Like some colors will be the regular retail version and other colors are from a different seller and either a no-name copy or a totally different year or model and price, and then the reviews are all but useless because you don't know which version they're referring to. Or what used to be a high quality product stops being for sale or stops being prime, and a different product gets merged with it and gets to start with 4 stars and hundreds of reviews.

There's definitely value in having access to cheap products, I guess I'm just surprised that Amazon has basically turned into Ebay rather than the other way around.

This is an, err..., "prime" point: Their aggressive and increasingly universal "mushing together" of reviews for specific items/entries into a single set of less-specific reviews.

Even if you've developed a nuanced view and ability to assess Amazon reviews, they've made it yet harder by dissassociating reviews from the specific, exact item in question.

The primary remaining value that Amazon has, for me, is that so far -- anecdotally and as far as I recall reading -- their payment system and record-keeping has not been directly compromised. (There was the password shortening/weakening behavior, exposed and fixed some years ago.) I hesitate to face replacing an exposed credit card -- maybe months down the line, and with fraudulent entries to clear up -- due to competitors' less robust payment systems.

That, and the fact that I now find the Prime video selection better than Netflix (in the U.S.).

But actually shopping on Amazon -- trying to find a best choice when you haven't already decided and know how to differentiate the authentic from a counterfeit or gray source -- has become damned frustrating.