I'd guess that the only way to really dislodge the Amazon widget would be to make sure it remains unprofitable. If it remains a major talking point and doesn't pull in enough money to compensate for its negative effect on community evangelism, it won't last long.

I have mixed feelings about the new system. On the one hand, I respect a lot of what Canonical is doing with linux regarding mainstreaming, streamlining, and even Unity. I also recognize that they are a company and need to make money, and think Amazon integration is preferable to dozens of preinstalled, hard-to-remove junkware applications.

On the other hand, I really don't like the intrusive-by-default nature of the integration, and the fact that I'll have to go tell all the folks I've installed Ubuntu for that they need to essentially disable spyware the next time they do a distribution upgrade.

On the third hand (what, you don't have one?) I'm not sure what other profitable solutions Canonical might implement in a community that values privacy and freedom.