> this is structurally no different than hiring an assistant to shop for you

In my opinion it's fundamentally not, because when you hire an assistant, you're hiring them with the intent to have them buy the product from the merchant.

Here, it would be like if you went to your local Safeway or other supermarket and there was a man standing at one of those sample carts who said "Hey, what you think of these papayas?" They're good, you look at them and decide you want two. "Great, I'll go in the back and get it." They disappear and come back with the papayas.

What's different:

1. You probably don't know where the papaya came from. Your intent in buying papayas didn't start with a clear understanding of the whole transaction.

2. You didn't interact with the merchant. If you want support, you have to go through the supermarket.

3. Whether you can file a credit card dispute is questionable. You likely won't win a dispute saying "I bought these and they're bad." You paid for a personal shopper, not a product. They substantially complied with their end of the transaction. You can't reliably dispute your instacart order saying "The papayas were disgusting." Instacart didn't sell you papayas, they sold you shopping services.

4. The merchant didn't sell to your email, they sold to some Amazon email. Good luck getting tracking details or getting customer support to talk to you directly. Good luck with returns.

5. Either Amazon is giving out your real credit card number (!) or using a virtual card. If it's the former, they've just invented credit card fraud as a service: you really going to trust Amazon's AI to hand out your card details safely? If it's the latter, you're probably going to get billed separately from the merchant charging you, which means Amazon is a middleman for refunds and payment issues.

In November I ordered a nozzle that I needed, which I knew had been discontinued. I ordered from a small seller, thinking they might still have some in stock. Turns out, they never even charged my card (probably because they don't have one and never will). I have been unable to get in touch with them about the order. I suspect this is very common, especially with drop shipping.

If Amazon charged me up front but they were not charged, that's outrageous. They don't even have a way for me to prove I didn't get my item (how could they?). Or will they mysteriously charge me at some point in the future? Who knows!