I used to buy things by going to amazon, searching for the type of product I want, and then picking one based on user review. For ten years or so this worked very well and I didn't even consider buying things from anyone else.
Now the reviews and rating are meaningless noise and I have to pick out a product to buy by looking elsewhere, which also typically results in me buying things elsewhere.
I agree with you, but my point is that you're the dramatic majority. Their revenue proves it. So, in 2020, even though their reviews are all garbage and spam, does it matter to them? I again ask, now, based on their data, what benefit it poses to them?
It behooves them to solve the problem before Walmart or whoever takes over their customers.
Legit manufacturers hate Amazon due to counterfeits. Ali is cheaper. Shopping websites get easier to make every year.
Sellers can hook up to multiple websites easily. What's Amazon's moat? It's been "the reviews".
This. They are if nothing else very good at data analysis, and when you have achieved market dominance it is more profitable to hide the problem, attack people pointing out the problem, and buy out any one trying to solve the problem than to fix it yourself. They could fill every order today with a box of straw and see no impact at all to their bottom line.
What alternative do people have here in the US? Go to an actual store? I just went to a local Home Depot to buy a power tool. The store was basically stock out on the thing I wanted from every available manufacturer, of which there are 5-6 Home Depot carries. But I could go on the Home Depot website and get any of them. Amazon destroyed physical retail, and now sits on the rubble and collects rent. The supreme irony is that Amazon is now ... opening physical locations. They built their empire on the notion that a storefront is a quaint anachronism of the undigital dark ages, why would they do that?
Now the reviews and rating are meaningless noise and I have to pick out a product to buy by looking elsewhere, which also typically results in me buying things elsewhere.