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Amazon.com, the Sleezy Casino of the Internet

I planned to write something about Christmas, I still will, because I have things to say. But not now, now I am mad and frustrated. I am mad at the fact that things and people waste my time. I would rather spend time with the people I care about than waste it with those who don’t even care if I am alive. Who am I talking about? Well, Amazon.com dear reader. Do you know what I hate about Amazon.com? Well for one, the interface is clunky and unusable. Trying to navigate around the accounts page is like walking around in a room full of mirrors. Amazon.com is the ugly casino of the Internet. Have you ever been to a casino, or perhaps a shopping mall? Well, casino and contemporary shopping mall theory deals solely with getting the user lost. In casinos, getting the user lost means enticing them to gamble more. This is accomplished by forcing the user down convoluted hallways [with no walls] that open directly onto the gaming areas. In shopping malls, there is never a straight path from A to B - rather there always is a zigzag like path in which your field of view is always occupied with storefronts. Both situations use bright lights, sound, smells, and seemingly random paths to in order to confuse and confound the user. The theory is that once the casino has sucked you into its premises, it tries at every turn to keep you within those premises, even resorting to the chicanery of making the user extremely mad, almost to a violent stage of anger. What has this to do with Amazon.com? Go and look at their page structure, can you find the login? It took me 30 seconds just to find the damn login area. Then when I was finished [I am not on my personal computer] it took me 5 minutes to find the logout – and that was by guessing the scripting code. Don’t get me started on the fact that Amazon.com uses both session ID’s that are at least 10 digits long, but the fact that they use referrer ID’s as well that are over 10 digits long. Coupled with the asinine way that they manage their database so that a favorite book of mine is not Or some other rational, helpful way to access books, but rather Amazon.com uses this long address: Pure madness. Amazon is the sleazy casino of the Internet that is a mess when discussing usability, but great if you want to do a quick search on books. That is the only redeeming value – the huge database and resources that is at the user’s disposal. Personally, I look up books and magazines on Amazon.com and then bop over to my local bookstore – a mere two flights of stairs and in the same building – and I ask the owner of one of the finest independent bookstores in the area if she has the particular book. If not, she orders it, it is here in 3 days, and I help support a local business. Same time as Amazon.com, same price, but I have supported local small businesses – not a global unusable hog.

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