> Do people really need same day delivery on consumer goods

No, but what I do need is low prices, reliable deliveries, easy returns, and a lot of customer reviews with photos and videos so I can get a sense of what the product actually is, and what kinds of things people like about it, and what kinds of problems they're having with it.

Amazon is literally the only delivery service in my area that doesn't just leave packages in front of my building to be stolen, but actually follows my delivery instructions for a code that lets them in -- and even has a place to put that in in the first place.

Amazon is the only store where if a product doesn't work or wasn't accurately described in the listing, I can easily drop it off at Whole Foods or UPS without having to box it up and print a label, and I don't have to worry about checking four weeks later whether I actually got refunded on my credit card because they always refund within a couple of hours. I also don't have to worry about submitting a "return request" and then waiting for an "RMA number" and then paying for return shipping.

And Amazon is the only place where popular products across all categories have thousands of reviews, rather than 10 or 5 or just 1, which lets me avoid a lot more returns than I would have to make otherwise.

Amazon sure isn't perfect, but the reality is that it's both cheaper and better than anything else for a large proportion of the things I need to buy.

I did not say it does not have any upsides. I said it's downsides (externalities) far outweigh them.

> Amazon is the only place where X

It will continue to be that way, until every other option closes, and then Amazon reverts to the norms you see elsewhere, because they have no competition remaining and no reason to provide good service.

Amazon really is a terrible retailer. Their search is a complete joke. The reviews are impossible to trust. They'll happily send you counterfeit goods. They rip off designs and new products to replace with their own inferior versions, and even customer service isn't what is used to be.

I think the main reason people use/prefer them is familiarity and availability. There are lots of things that are hard to find in local shops or even other stores online. That's in no small part because of what amazon as done to brick and mortar retail and their online competitors, but I do feel for people who want something but have no idea where they'd even start looking for it except for amazon. The situation is likely to only get worse as search engines grow increasingly less useful.

Even when you want to quit them it can be hard to escape amazon. It's work to try to determine the trustworthiness of random storefronts you've never heard of before entrusting them with your credit card info, and I've even heard stories of people who ordered from other sites, paying more than they would have on amazon, only to get their item in an amazon box.

Their product search is... interesting. I used to think that it was programmed by idiots, and wondered how Amazon, with the ability to hire all the expertise in the world, couldn't do better. Then I realised its function is not to give you what you are looking for, it's to maximize Amazon's profits, which it clearly does fantastically well. I would imagine that a lot of heavy-duty machine learning goes into Amazon's product search to make this happen.

Single parents holding down a brutal job(s), areas that are majorly under served by meager retail offerings, folks with mobility impairments, the need for specific items that are hard to get in a timely fashion from other online solutions, the list goes on.

Time in a weekday tends to be at a steep premium for me personally; between Amazon and my local grocery store that offers online ordering and in-person pickup, these offerings are a lifesaver.