I think I just saw Amazon's crown wobble. Just a titch.
I think I just saw the beginning of the end for Amazon.
It started with an article on TechRadar about a new solid state battery pack. I clicked through, read a few lines, followed the manufacturer’s link, and ended up on a site I had never visited before. Right there in the middle of the page was a button that said SHOP, paired with the last three digits of my Amex and a tiny little logo.
I clicked it.
Everything was filled in... shipping, billing, all correct. I clicked “Complete Purchase”.
I braced for the usual pain. You know the drill... the clunky checkout, the half-integrated payment widget, the endless friction meant to avoid getting burned.
Nope.
Done. Instant. “Thank you for shopping today, sir.”
I hate Amazon, but I’m there for convenience, not moral clarity. So they get a lot of my money.
But if this is the new retail... well, let the games begin.
For twenty years Amazon’s moat has been this hard truth... people will trade anything for convenience. Not loyalty, not principles, not brand affinity. Just the ability to click once and have something appear at their door.
And by the way, they didn’t get that head start because they were brilliant. They got it because the U.S. Patent Office handed them an advantage they never should have had. Amazon was granted a patent on “one-click purchasing”... as if storing a card on file and skipping a checkout page was some kind of breakthrough. It wasn’t. Every competitor knew it. But the patent locked the industry out for years and let Amazon run uncontested while everyone else waited for the monopoly timer to expire.
But something has shifted. Payments are breaking free from platforms. Identity is following the user instead of the website. The checkout experience is dissolving into the background... almost ambient.
When that happens, the power moves upstream. Discovery matters. Trust matters. Product matters. And the retailer with the least friction will win, even if they’ve never seen you before.
This was one random battery company in one random moment... but if every manufacturer gets this right, Amazon’s crown starts to wobble.
Because convenience can move. And when it does, the empire built on it starts to crack.
End Notes
The article that set this in motion:
https://www.techradar.com/phones/solid-state-battery-packs-are-on-the-rise-and-this-early-contender-has-two-key-benefits-over-its-traditional-rivalsAmazon’s one-click patent (U.S. Patent 5,960,411) was granted in 1999 and remained enforceable until 2017. It covered the idea of storing customer details server-side and enabling a frictionless transaction with a single confirmation. The concept itself was simple and widely anticipated, but the software-patent climate of the time allowed Amazon to claim broad exclusivity. Apple licensed it rather than challenge it. Everyone else waited for expiration. This exclusivity boosted Amazon’s early dominance by locking competitors out of seamless checkout for nearly two decades.
Anytime I can get the word “titch” into a title is a victory. ;-) DW