I actually liked the ads before Amazon started focusing on the local crap. I used to get a lot of great offers I could USE and I WANTED. Amazon actually sent a message (I think) way back when that allowed you to opt out of local ads. I opted out but they keep coming in greater numbers. Amazon also had a mechanism for selecting the types of ads you wanted. I selected my options but they had zero effect. Obviously both of those mechanisms were total BS as neither worked.

In my case the local ads are totally worthless. They are for items of no interest to me in one-off stores located 20+ miles away and I would never shop in those kinds of stores anyway. A typical example of AmazonLocal is a small discount (talking about a few pennies) on some home-made cookies sold by a store which overprices everything by 2x or 3x or higher, plus I would have to spend a few dollars on gasoline just to go there. Let me see, buy a large box of cookies at my grocery store for $2 or buy a small bag of cookies from Mom and Pop's Overpriced Store and basically pay $15. Yep, that's a good freaking offer!

They should go back to offering us $10 off on $20 gift cards and the $5 off on a $10 purchase and give us more offers of $1 books. I personally feel that the AmazonLocal offers are a major ripoff and I feel SOV (special offer violated).