This was considered a feature back in the day; it was called MASE - Multiple Account, Same Email. I'm pretty sure you can just change the email on one of them to get out of that state.
The way it was explained to me: originally, Amazon didn't want there to be any barriers to someone making a purchase on the website, not even the barrier of having to reset a forgotten password. So the choice was made to allow people to create new accounts with the same email address (such as when attempting to check out; that's when this would likely happen). Each account was distinguished at login by its email + password combination.
It was indeed called "Multiple Accounts, Same Email", though I only heard that term applied to it much later (after the phenomenon of these accounts was identified as a problem that the company needed to resolve). I don't think it was exactly what I'd call a feature, in the sense that I don't think anyone expected users to do it intentionally, so much as it was "We don't want to lose a purchase to someone getting stuck at the login screen".
The Web and its users have evolved significantly since those early days, and resetting a password by email is no longer the barrier it once was. Among other reasons: web users are savvy to the idea of having accounts, which was not true in Amazon's early days; and email is a lot faster and more reliable now.
Allowing multiple accounts to share an email address proved to be a problematic decision later on for a number of reasons. Amazon doesn't allow this any more, at least not from the primary sign-in screen; it gives an "Email address already in use" error.
Back in the late 90s, there weren't a ton of free email services and most people used an account from their ISP. Extra accounts were hard to come by. If you had a family sharing an internet connection, they might very well share an email address too. This let them have individual Amazon accounts.
So I have an amazon.com and amazon.in account. The latter one is my main account but the former one I created to redeem a gift card I got from a survey.
Personally I use the + feature on email addresses to achieve this.
me+folder@example.com
Maps to the account me and will (if configured correctly) put the mail in a folder called folder if such exists.
The reason you might want many accounts with the same email seem many to me if you don't realise that you can create arbitrary distinct emails this easily.
lxgr|2 years ago
jcrites|2 years ago
It was indeed called "Multiple Accounts, Same Email", though I only heard that term applied to it much later (after the phenomenon of these accounts was identified as a problem that the company needed to resolve). I don't think it was exactly what I'd call a feature, in the sense that I don't think anyone expected users to do it intentionally, so much as it was "We don't want to lose a purchase to someone getting stuck at the login screen".
The Web and its users have evolved significantly since those early days, and resetting a password by email is no longer the barrier it once was. Among other reasons: web users are savvy to the idea of having accounts, which was not true in Amazon's early days; and email is a lot faster and more reliable now.
Allowing multiple accounts to share an email address proved to be a problematic decision later on for a number of reasons. Amazon doesn't allow this any more, at least not from the primary sign-in screen; it gives an "Email address already in use" error.
dlgeek|2 years ago
anshumankmr|2 years ago
etothepii|2 years ago
me+folder@example.com
Maps to the account me and will (if configured correctly) put the mail in a folder called folder if such exists.
The reason you might want many accounts with the same email seem many to me if you don't realise that you can create arbitrary distinct emails this easily.