Searched for winter gloves and every brand I got was like ACGYG, OPGHT, OOPGLOV, WARMItsc. No North Face, no OR, no Columbia - it's all just Alibaba flea market garbage everywhere on the site now.

... and if you give them less than 4 stars they get really cranky and you get a zillion emails from Chinese bots named Marsha Tucker, Bonnie Payne, Desiree Shears, Kerry Andrews, asking to change your review in exchange of "gifts". Surreal shit.

Half As Interesting did a great vid about why and how that stuff exists www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bq-...

I try to avoid Amazon altogether anymore. So much counterfeit sold by companies with losing hands of Scrabble for names. Barely even worth trying to figure out which company was the first one to upload a particular product image

Or you find something that CLAIMS it's the right brand, but what arrives at your door is not. I've had that happen too many times.

Yeah—the sheer amount of weird junk I don't know anything about and can't trust the reviews for is another big reason (besides the massive labor and environmental issues) why I avoid Amazon as much as I can. I don't know what an Orpdkls is. I can't trust that not to fall apart after 2 uses.

There was a time when finding an online store with 10 identical products with different nonsense brand names that all had 2,000+ 5 star reviews was a surefire scam site made to steal your credit card, maybe we should remember that

I know and it's EVERY product too.