I know I was browsing ads. I said "Google Shopping ads were actually pretty useful". I also didn't say that was the only source I looked at. It just happened to have all of my go-to gear companies in a handy ranked list. Amazon isn't in that list -- I check them manually.

The prices are actually the same whether you get to the vendor through Google shopping ads or not. The company's prices in aggregate are affected by their revenue spent on Google advertising.

Whether I get screwed or not is my problem. I'm saying it was a useful tool to have in my research.