thanks for the response. it's totally reasonable to want a shopping experience where you just search for $item and the item you get is actually a decent quality

thanks for the response. it's totally reasonable to want a shopping experience where you just search for $item and the item you get is actually a decent quality. unfortunately, it seems that amazon is not this kind of service anymore. my usual shopping workflow is 1) lookup the wirecutter article for the item I want, then 2) go to amazon and get the top or budget wirecutter pick (depending on price and how much I care). I've never been disappointed by the item I got, but I definitely understand if you don't want to work this hard for a spatula. I guess I have some sort of amazon stockholm syndrome if I never noticed the problem with my workflow. for me, it's just a warehouse full of random items with free two day shipping. the index to the items is external to the service.