You know what bothers me?

Adapted from a post by @werehatrack.

Trying not to buy crap on Amazon and still getting crap from Amazon.

Now, I get why an online seller might not want to handle packing and shipping their own stuff, I really do.

The whole pack-and-ship process is a chore at best and mind-numbing at worst.

But these people aren’t just using Amazon as their fulfillment warehouse. Oh no, they’re flat-out listing Amazon items for sale on places like eBay and then ordering it with their Prime account to send it straight to me!

All to skim whatever slim margin they can off the top, and maybe get another 5% on their Rewards card or something. I don’t know.

Entrepreneurial, you say? More like brainless arbitrage.

Sure, I could just shop on Amazon and find a better deal than what I’m getting from these alleged “sellers,” but the whole point was not to use Amazon.

I could always head over to something like Walmart’s online store, sample an older flavor of retail hell, but even there I still end up getting something with an obvious Amazon tracking label!

This modern e-marketplace just ain’t shaping up to be the utopia we were promised, or maybe I’m just too much of a frustrated idealist.

Maybe I should just suck it up and find local sources for things I need instead of always shopping online.

If I could manage that, then maybe, just maybe, this bothers me more than it should.