It is majorly self defeating.  A transaction on Amazon has very little friction, because they already have your payment details, you have a history and you know the quirks of the site.<p>By forcing people to consider alternatives, it is making people experience that initial friction elsewhere, but once they are setup there the friction is less.  It won&#x27;t take very long to discover other retailers have better prices, better shipping and less quirky sites.<p>Essentially this is nice gift to Amazon&#x27;s competitors.  Amazon will find out just how &quot;sticky&quot; those competitors are, but this stills seems silly.