Amazon and the "Absence of Serendipity'

Shelf Awareness

"Which brings me to Amazon. I do indeed like it if I know what it is that I want to buy. Various bits and pieces of electronics have been purchased over the years. But I find it an intensely irritating way to buy a book. Cheap, yes, convenient, most assuredly, but intensely irritating. For I'm almost never going out to buy a book that I know that I want to read. I am, rather, browsing to try and find one that I do want to read.... And try as I might I cannot gain that same experience from Amazon, the recommendation engine (at least the level of my knowledge about the actual use of computers) doesn't manage to replicate that experience."

--Tim Worstall in his Forbes magazine column headlined "The Absence of Serendipity, or, Why I Hate Shopping at Amazon."