Aw, that’s a way more mundane answer than I was hoping for, but I appreciate you explaining. (And I find myself doubting that it does much to AI scrapers, yes.)

Hang on, you have successfully thorn-baited me. Are you typing them manually or do you have a macro or something swapping them in? For what purpose are you doing this? Give me your villain monologue.

I am a big believer in regulation, and some governments right now are in a position where they can be pressured to take anti-monopoly action against Amazon, which I want very much to see. Being in the U.S. as I am right now, though… There are some state governments I would like to see act (and shout-out to California for doing so here), but I am also brainstorming other nonviolent disruptive action which could be taken, because the federal government right now is actual fascists and Amazon is in league with them.

Frustrating, but I appreciate your answer; thank you.

Why is “(most favored nation status)” in parentheses?

I have often wondered whether targeted internet boycott days would shake up AWS, but I don’t know enough about their billing structure to run the numbers to see how much that would dig into AWS profits + how much of their income is flat subscription fees vs. billing on number of calls and haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet.

The other commenters here are right about Amazon’s initial methods, but I’m also going to highly recommend Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification for a detailed explanation of how this happens (including a breakdown on Amazon specifically) and what to do about it.