Loved this article. Amazon is a remarkable company, but wins by sheer tonnage because it isn't run by humans, but by AI robots.

Here's what Machine Learning Robots look like from the end user side. `

I wanted to find drip trays, aluminum, disposable, to fit my toaster over. That meant 11 x 8 x 1. Simple. No interest in any other size. impossible to find on Amazon due to how their search engine works and sizing charts work. After looking for an hour, I gave up and bought nothing.

I wanted to repair that darn Ethernet cable RJ-45 connector where the little plastic thing that locks the connector snaps off.

All I wanted was a pass through crimp tool, maybe 6 plastic connectors, 6 rubber boots to protect that plastic hook from catching on something and snapping off. `

And I wanted a price that was less than buying an entirely new cable and putting the broken one in the trash.

I don't need a network cable testing tool, I don't need 50 connectors (I am not a business or IT professional), I don't need a cable stripping tool. I just needed the pass-through stripper / crimper and a few plastic connectors. A fair price would be around $15 max.

Again, after an hour of looking, there was no product designed for the home user or family-owned business to repair Ethernet cables a few times in the next ten years. I bought nothing and just used a bunch of tape to secure the cable to the adapter.

I bought an Espresso machine on Amazon. I wanted to buy a stainless-steel funnel and tamper to fill and compress the coffee in the basket without spilling coffee grounds and making a mess.

Amazon does not sell these funnels because only a human who made espresso regularly would know that a filling funnel makes the life of an amateur barista much better. They do sell tampers, though.

What size was my basket, that piece with the handle where the ground coffee in loaded. 45mm, 47mm, 48mm, 50mm, 51mm . . . The choice was endless.

Amazon could provide the dimensions of the BOX the machine was shipped in, which won't tell me if the machine fits under my kitchen cabinets. Amazon could tell me the weight of the machine, another piece of useless information to the end user. (Dimensional weight is a valuable metric for Amazon to ship efficiently but useless to the end user.)

Not a single espresso machine seller on Amazon was required to provide the diameter of the basket. I looked and looked online for a handle and basket that looked like mine.

Finally, saw it on a video and asked the video maker what was the size of that basket. 51-52 mm, most likely 52mm. So I order the 52mm tamper from Amazon.

One silly millimeter too big in diameter to fit inside the basket. Returned the 52mm, ordered the 51mm tamper. Bingo. It fits.

Then I could go to the third-party site (with no E-Z returns) and order the corresponding funnel that Amazon doesn't even think is worth carrying (or no one in the funnel business sees Amazon as a good place to sell their products.)

This is so typical of Amazon. Finding the right product on their awful search engine and not finding the important specifications in their poorly managed Robot specification collection system is so frustrating.

Complaining or suggesting falls on deaf ears, as I suspect the maintenance of the product pages is outsourced to a contractor.

Robot management with no humans in control and no one listening to customer feedback is the crack in Amazon's armor of invulnerability.