Amazon must love coronavirus
With the guidance from our elitist betters to stay home and order everything in, corporations like Amazon must be making a mint. I can't speak for others, but I'm so disappointed with Amazon that I'm well on my way to remaining with Amazon only for digital content that I've already purchased. I'm that disgusted.
I'm sure Amazon has competent software people to implement its search algorithms, so it must be purposeful that they don't work as expected. You can try to make a narrowly targeted search phrase, but Amazon opens it up to things that aren't the slightest bit related. On top of that, "free" delivery is included in the price (so it costs more), and the item is sometimes not available for over a month.
For example, you can certainly search for "water enhancer with electrolytes." It didn't limit itself to showing me water enhancers with added electrolytes. It included basic water flavorings and water enhancers with vitamins but not electrolytes. Is this an electronic version of making customers walk past everything in the store to buy the most popular items, to take advantage of impulse buying? I suspect so. It's almost as annoying as the brick-and-mortar version of the ploy, but at least I'm not abusing my arthritic knees trying to get the one item I need at the back of the store. I'm also not buying their water enhancer because I'm ticked off.
Try searching for "made in USA" items. (Skip looking for "not made in China." That only selects for "made in China.") The search results include a number of items that do not say "made in USA" anywhere in the product description. Asking about the manufacturer often yields the information (from an Amazon customer who has purchased the item) that the product was made in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. To me, this goes beyond the annoyance of clutter into deceptive advertising. Sure, Amazon has a liberal return policy, but you still have the inconvenience of picking it up and returning it, and the additional delay before you try again to get an item that was really manufactured in the USA.
Enter the Amazon love for coronavirus argument: we would order a lot less and tolerate a lot less annoyance in normal times, when we could go get basics at local stores. We would make more of our own food instead of buying Ramen at double to triple the in-store price. We would go to restaurants only a few times per week. If you're unemployed on top of coronavirus worries, you cannot afford to live as if you had income. That credit card is going to have to be paid for eventually.
Welcome to shopping slavery. And you thought you had it bad before.