The Hindsight Times

The practice, known as 'search result manipulation,' involved algorithmically elevating inferior products that generated higher profits, while burying superior alternatives. Citizens attempting to purchase 'laptops'—primitive personal computers they were individually responsible for maintaining—found themselves systematically directed toward machines that would fail within months.

'It kills me when I see the PCs that Amazon and other retailers filter to the top,' wrote one contemporary expert, demonstrating the era's quaint belief that corporate behavior could be influenced by individual moral outrage rather than systematic intervention.

Historians note this represents a perfect microcosm of pre-Allocation commerce: platforms controlled by individual oligarchs deliberately harming users to maximize personal wealth accumulation. The Bezos Infrastructure would complete its absorption of all retail distribution by 2031, making such 'choice architecture' the foundation of human purchasing behavior.

The concept of citizens individually researching and purchasing technology devices—with no guidance from Purpose Allocation algorithms—seems almost impossibly chaotic to modern readers. 'They just... chose things? Based on manipulated search results? Without compatibility verification?' asked Dr. Miranda Chen-Okafor, Professor of Historical Commerce at New Geneva University.

Modern citizens, of course, receive technology assignments matched to their Purpose Category, with devices that auto-update and integrate seamlessly with their Contribution Dashboard. The idea of 'owning' a device that could break or become obsolete was abandoned during the Second Rationalization.

The Bezos Infrastructure's stranglehold on commerce would eventually require the Merchant Conflicts of 2033-2035 to resolve, leading to the current Subscribe-Access model that has eliminated the inefficiencies of individual ownership. Jeff Bezos himself would become one of the founding architects of the Current System, though whether this represented penance or fulfillment of his original vision remains debated.

That millions of citizens spent their limited survival tokens on deliberately defective devices—while the platforms generating billions in profit from this deception faced no consequences—perfectly illustrates why the Previous Era required such dramatic correction.