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by totalZero 2053 days ago
Among other reasons, one motivator for Amazon to solve this problem is the fact that the present administration has brought Amazon's problem with counterfeiting front and center into the public debate about China. Like him or not, Peter Navarro has repeatedly talked about Amazon and counterfeit goods in media appearances over the course of the past few years.
1 comments

Those are all issues money will fix and Amazon has plenty of money to fix oversight nuisances.
I agree with that, but it really highlights the fact that Amazon has willingly avoided solving this problem. In other words, it's not an oversight -- if it were, they would have thrown money at the problem to make it disappear already.

Amazon makes money off counterfeit products that sell on its platform.

The most profitable outcome for Amazon is for there to be a large assortment of products that are either (A) totally legitimate, (B) counterfeit/flawed but equal in quality to the genuine product, or (C) counterfeit/flawed but so inexpensive that the customer doesn't complain too much.

Clothing is the kind of product that is easy to counterfeit but draws complaints from users who discriminate between the quality/durability/appearance of the real product and the false one. A phone case, drill bit, pair of tweezers, or ball bearing is the kind of product that is easy to counterfeit but may not be noticeable.

Similarly, Benson Leung taught us that a USB-C cable is the kind of product where you can sell low-quality junk lookalikes and the average consumer will have no idea what makes it worse than a more expensive cable.