Why I’m Done With Amazon • Indie Traveller

Last week, the blogging world was on fire. People were up in arms.

The reason?

Hidden inside what seemed like a routine terms of service update, Amazon announced they were dramatically dropping payouts to affiliates. 

This left a lot of bloggers completely stunned.

You see, many blogs and websites (including mine) have an affiliate partnership with Amazon, letting us recommend products through special links and earn commissions. Some sites rely heavily on this program, which has existed basically since the Internet’s primordial soup days, back when Amazon was just a scrappy little startup.

(Some big review sites, like The Wirecutter, basically exist at all because of these affiliate partnerships.)

But then, last week, Amazon decided to radically alter its partnership program. From a business point of view they’re entitled to do this, but the severity of the changes and the timing of it made many bloggers and website publishers feel justifiably betrayed.

Amazon weren’t just…