Exactly, it's a shit pit of affiliate marketers pumping anything for that <2% referral fee they get. As a side hustle they probably drop ship everything they are selling via Amazon affiliate links too.

With two major differences - 1-2 day delivery (vs 1-2 week) and an almost guaranteed no-questions-asked returns policy (Ive never, in 15 years of using amazon, been denied a refund)

They combination is what differentiates them

I've ordered non-prime items on the local Amazon, where I'd first receive a "sorry, this is taking longer than expected, please hang with us" and then the package would come _way_ later straight from China.

That sucks - I'm in the UK so my experience might be different, but with the exception of something going wrong with delivery (Which I'd estimate is ~5-10% of the time, but that's not exclusive to Amazon), packages are here within 48 hours.