There are some things ongoing by people that realize what is happening, for example in the blockchain space. Blockchain beside attempting to solve cool tech problem of Byzantine generals was also motivated by increasing transparency, i.e. removing or disclosing corruption by money means. There is more work done right now to prevent dominant intermediaries like Amazon from increasingly abusing their position by removing the need to use their platform at all and move it to a p2p blockchain instead. There are now options to (or at least try to) put an end to millenia of horrible human behavior.
There is more work done right now to prevent dominant intermediaries like Amazon from increasingly abusing their position by removing the need to use their platform at all and move it to a p2p blockchain instead.
So, those small online stores didn't used to all be on Amazon or Ebay. Which means those platforms must be providing something that the store proprietors think is worth losing some of their independence over.
What is that "something", and what does the blockchain do to provide it that just getting an account with a payment processor doesn't do?
For example not being kicked out from a platform for no reason, because some MBA needs to fill their quarterly quota of kicked out 3rd party sellers? Not giving sales data on what is selling well to your competitor that in turn would start manufacturing their "essentials" line, copying your product, and undercutting you? Please read what is right now happening with Amazon and tell me you like what it is becoming. Amazon used to be very useful for sellers when it allowed rotating shopping cart so that everyone got some throughput on a single marketplace, paying them some 15% of revenue for this "marketing". This is no longer feasible for most 3rd party sellers; instead Amazon is becoming very restrictive, siding with big brands, more and more rejecting honest businesses and locking them out of their platform.
> This is no longer feasible for most 3rd party sellers; instead Amazon is becoming very restrictive, siding with big brands, more and more rejecting honest businesses and locking them out of their platform.
I'd be interested in reading more detailed first-hand descriptions of this, but searching for some key phrases from your description is just bringing up irrelevant product links. It's seemingly at odds with the rampant counterfeiting and listing spam (to confirm that my experience isn't outdated, I just went to the "Unlocked Cell Phones" category, sorted by lowest price, and found a listing for "Example Product Title" by "Example Product Brand", available from 3 sellers) on Amazon. I guess it's conceivable that Amazon is good at logistics/infrastructure but flagrantly awful at the "marketplace" component.
They recently opened up their marketplace to junk sellers from China and India, then adjusted their automated ML to be super restrictive to sort out the junk, and honest US businesses are now treated the same way as junk Indian ones, getting kicked out on mere suspicions of violations (i.e. presumed to be guilty by default). I guess it doesn't matter to them.