If you want 200 million global subs and billions in recurring revenue, apparently you gotta sprinkle in a little dark magic.

That’s what the FTC is accusing Amazon of in its long-awaited Prime trial, which kicked off this week in Seattle… right in Bezos’ old stomping grounds (before he turned into a Miami finance bro).

The FTC’s complaint, filed way back in 2023, essentially says Amazon “tricked and trapped” customers into signing up for Prime. Think: big navy blue “Buy Now” button that’s secretly a 10-foot-tall chain link fence into Bezos’ $139-a-year theme park. And once you’re inside? Canceling was harder than escaping a timeshare seminar in Cancun (speaking from experience).

Internally, Amazon even called its four-page, six-click, 15-option cancellation gauntlet the “Iliad Flow” (nothing screams customer obsession like making your users reenact Homer’s epic poem just to quit free shipping). Employees privately called it an “unspoken cancer.” Doug Herrington, Amazon’s retail chief, reportedly dubbed Bezos the “chief dark arts officer.” You can’t make this sh*t up.

Of course, Amazon swears the signup and cancellation process was “clear and simple.” Translation: if you got lost in the labyrinth, that’s on you, dummy. They argue that occasional “customer frustrations” are inevitable when 200 million people are on the platform. Or, as Jeff Bezos once famously said, Prime should be “such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to join.” But that sounds less inspiring when the FTC’s implying you built a digital Hotel California.

Judge John Chun already hit Amazon with an early L, ruling they violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by acquiring billing info before disclosing full terms. And two senior execs (Prime boss Jamil Ghani and health SVP Neil Lindsay) could be individually on the hook if the jury sides with regulators. Billions in damages are on the table if Amazon loses. And this is just the preseason game before the FTC’s Super Bowl in 2027.

(Source: CNBC)

Amazon isn’t the only big name getting dragged into the muddy regulatory waters. The FTC has made “dark patterns” its personal crusade. Uber, Match, and Chegg have all been hit for shady subscription practices. But let’s be real… no one runs dark patterns like Amazon. They basically turned UX trickery into a trillion-dollar business model.

Prime is Amazon’s moat… deep as the ocean and stocked with 197 million subscribers splashing around like goldfish that forgot how to leave. The FTC’s standing on the shore with a bucket trying to drain it, Amazon swears it’s “customer obsession,” and Wall Street’s waving pom-poms while Andy Jassy carts another $100B in GPUs over the drawbridge. And if somebody’s 90-year-old grandma is doggy paddling in circles trying to cancel? Sorry Nana, maybe you should’ve brought your reading glasses for the fine print.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon and Uber as mentioned in the article.