I think Google should just remove all pages with affiliate links from its index (which of course includes detecting all the ways to defeat that like URL shorten

I think Google should just remove all pages with affiliate links from its index (which of course includes detecting all the ways to defeat that like URL shorteners, redirect pages, JavaScript hackery, giving a different version to the crawler, etc.) Every time you search for "best X" you'll find a page with low-effort copied or write-for-hire content design to get you to click on Amazon affiliate links as opposed to what you are looking for, which is an actual review by someone who is an X enthusiast, personally bought and tested all the options and is eager to share their findings.