I don’t think that you can look at a specific patent in isolation and 30 years later hand waive that it wasn’t worth it.
The existence and availability of obtaining patents on new publicly disclosed inventions heavily incentivizes R&D efforts overall. The disclosure and exclusivity properties encourages constant innovation and novel discoveries in order to compete. There is unquestionably a constant arms race to patent new ways to provide features which amaze users. I assume Amazon was then and continues to be now absolutely laser focused on developing patentable user-facing features which increase conversion.
The same patent system which gave us 1-click also gives us technology like Apple Pay, which is a delight to use along with impressively secure. In 30 years I assume people will be lamenting how obvious that was too.
The existence and availability of obtaining patents on new publicly disclosed inventions heavily incentivizes R&D efforts overall. The disclosure and exclusivity properties encourages constant innovation and novel discoveries in order to compete. There is unquestionably a constant arms race to patent new ways to provide features which amaze users. I assume Amazon was then and continues to be now absolutely laser focused on developing patentable user-facing features which increase conversion.
The same patent system which gave us 1-click also gives us technology like Apple Pay, which is a delight to use along with impressively secure. In 30 years I assume people will be lamenting how obvious that was too.