I don't share the Amazon hate everyone has, I've had very good experiences with Amazon retail. But I do sometimes try to spread out my purchases to other vendors due to monopoly concerns.

It's amazing how many times you buy direct from a vendor and then it comes via Fulfilled by Amazon.

The other issue is when anything goes wrong I've had a hell of a time with some vendors. It's a crapshoot - some vendors ship quickly and competently, and handle customer service like returns quite well. Others you might end up with your product not even shipping for a week much less arriving, even though the store says "in stock ships tomorrow". Due to this, when I really must have something on time or if it's a risky purchase I have a good chance of needing to return I tend towards just getting it with Amazon.

A lot of smaller shops simply don't want to deal with logistics and customer service - it's hard to compete on Amazon for shipping costs. And warehouse/returns/etc. is just a nightmare for a small shop. I absolutely understand why a small speciality manufacturer with a few dozen low volume SKUs would prefer to just use FBA and be done with it.

> it's hard to compete on Amazon for shipping costs.

Not so much that it is hard, as that Amazon more or less forces vendors on its platforms to eat shipping costs.

Good, I want the platform to squeeze vendors as much as possible. This is how consumers win

We all wear multiple hats in our lives. Consumers. Citizens. Employees. Many more.

Amazon has been really good for us when we wear our consumer hats. Not so much when we wear the others.