TL;DR: Amazon's "no fees" pitch still routes transactions through their app, so they capture the customer data. Shopify did the same with one-page checkout funneling buyers into Shopify Audiences. The real competition is not ad spend but data infrastructure. If you don't own your pipeline, you don't own your customers.
Amazon’s new pitch to merchants sounds generous: “Bypass all fees — let customers shop your brand directly.”
Here’s the fine print,
A shopper searches for your brand → clicks your website → makes a purchase.
But the transaction still happens inside Amazon’s app. You get the sale. Amazon gets the customer.
If that sounds familiar, remember Shopify’s “one-page checkout”?
Merchants loved it — until they learned every buyer was being funneled into Shopify Audiences. Your checkout data became their data to monetize.
Different platform, same playbook. Merchants win short-term revenue but lose long-term customer relationships and retargeting power.
The fight isn’t over ad spend anymore but over data infrastructure. In an AI-first world, the companies that own data pipelines own the future.
If you don’t control your infrastructure, you don’t control your customers. No matter whose checkout they use.
