I’m disappointed that Amazon isn’t included because they’re a giant in the marketplace and have long engaged in a related practice. (On top of all their other monopolistic and other exploitative practices)
Based on what they know about their customers (and they obviously know a lot) they will provide different results for search queries, showing you the most expensive and profitable options that they believe that you’re likely to purchase. Two people doing the exact same search for headphones or whatever will not be seeing the same options, and even if you do an extremely specific, tailored search for a product it can be very hard to find the specific product/seller that you’re looking for if that’s not one of the ones that Amazon is trying to get you to buy.
A little while back Adam Conover was interviewing someone about Amazon and he explained that it’s even worse than the old days of having a single company-owned store in a factory town. Those stores may have been monopolies, but at least everyone could clearly see the same products available on the shelves, and everyone paid the same prices for those products.
