{"id":12687,"date":"2023-12-19T12:37:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T11:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/has-online-shopping-left-us-in-a-desperate-race-to-the-bottom\/"},"modified":"2023-12-19T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T11:37:18","slug":"has-online-shopping-left-us-in-a-desperate-race-to-the-bottom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/has-online-shopping-left-us-in-a-desperate-race-to-the-bottom\/","title":{"rendered":"Has online shopping left us in a desperate race to the bottom?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Low-cost, low-quality \u2018everything\u2019 stores such as Temu, Shein and Amazon make buying stuff easier than ever \u2013 but it comes at a cost<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ablink.editorial.theguardian.com\/ss\/c\/TBl-lE0k4WbTlFRn6v-lQXxTpTslqnvUsR2ofAkC00vqkHXqakTSxrykj9mrdACFo11SPMvm9ONAti2JcHBqUgcduObToxycReEYHcTAh6nov_u_7l464yKkl5CZpPeg-CqG3ueb-8UiDZ4dOkhK_xu6BZysaGtGOA-w2_0KTqLsMBLqZrcGelEg-7T5C6DRfMSsX1Wcyrv2RlHjbzIGx0ePxMD7meIXmznkqCFxtrflV_YvxDV9cqXgzdq7c2-9qYTW0MyIMCG7p9sc7wIKCg\/3ha\/N7031ZxvS8Cv2AmB8PHP-g\/h27\/towm4HqYM1UtQe3kzAkaoAWT_zh9HyZuTvPyJCk6JeE\">Don\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free newsletter here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This year, like retirees are wont to do, my dad got extremely into a very specific hobby. In his case, it was hauling out the espresso machine from its usual hiding spot in the hard-to-reach cabinet and making lattes for the family. He lamented his inability to make a perfect swirl with the foam frequently enough that, in anticipation of Christmas, I went online to search for latte art stencils.<\/p>\n<p>The Google search result was like nothing I had encountered before. Instead of a list of actual shops that sold reputable, well-crafted products, I was served an overwhelming mess of online retailers I had either never heard of or had once been cautioned against. Every widget, sidebar and filter had been deployed to ostensibly aid in my search experience, but actually ended up crowding the screen with sponsored listings and images.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2023\/dec\/19\/techscape-internet-shopping-tracking-tiktok-shop\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/79ea40eaa1c4207e547957cf94bc3fb861d807bf\/0_431_7934_4761\/master\/7934.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=80c082938bde69a93e3c3fe0fd061454\" title=\"Has online shopping left us in a desperate race to the bottom?\" \/>Low-cost, low-quality \u2018everything\u2019 stores such as Temu, Shein and Amazon make buying stuff easier than ever \u2013 but it comes at a cost<br \/>\n\u2022 Don\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free newsletter here<br \/>\nThis year, like retirees are wont to do, my dad got extremely into a very specific hobby. In his case, it was hauling out the espresso machine from its usual hiding spot in the hard-to-reach cabinet and making lattes for the family. He lamented his inability to make a perfect swirl with the foam frequently enough that, in anticipation of Christmas, I went online to search for latte art stencils.<br \/>\nThe Google search result was like nothing I had encountered before. Instead of a list of actual shops that sold reputable, well-crafted products, I was served an overwhelming mess of online retailers I had either never heard of or had once been cautioned against. Every widget, sidebar and filter had been deployed to ostensibly aid in my search experience, but actually ended up crowding the screen with sponsored listings and images. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Low-cost, low-quality \u2018everything\u2019 stores such as Temu, Shein and Amazon make buying stuff easier than ever \u2013 but it comes at a cost \u2022 Don\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free newsletter here This year, like retirees are wont to do, my dad got extremely into a very specific hobby. &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/has-online-shopping-left-us-in-a-desperate-race-to-the-bottom\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Has online shopping left us in a desperate race to the bottom?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12687"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}