In an interesting sense, this is because of Apple. It used to be simple. You set up an online store; you put some ads on Instagram and Google; you earn back wh

In an interesting sense, this is because of Apple. It used to be simple. You set up an online store; you put some ads on Instagram and Google; you earn back what you paid for the ads quickly. With each additional sale, targeting of customers gets easier, and cheaper. Apple dropped their privacy changes. Don't get the idea that they had good intentions and are protecting the user- they've got an ad product on the way and just wanted to raise prices across the market. So now in order to get those first sales, you need to put your ad in front of a lot more people because you can't tell which ones will be interested. That raises the cost of acquisition for your customer base, often beyond what's economically viable. So who wins? Amazon, because they own a massive customer base and if you pay them enough, they'll put your product in front of customers. They have market power and they happily take advantage of it.