[throwaway201103]

Maybe this is a longer game by Amazon. Let bogus reviews and bad experiences pile up for third party sellers, slowly driving people to only trust "Amazon Basics." They have nearly perfect knowledge of the profitability of any item, so they know what items they should have under the "Amazon Basics" umbrella. Over time they could expand this into other Amazon "Brands" at varying quality/price points.

[mortenjorck]

I’m surprised there aren’t counterfeit AmazonBasics products by now. Or are those the only listings that disallow third-party / commingled-inventory sellers?

[dasudasu]

They do already have other Amazon brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Amazon_brands

For instance, Goodthreads is one step above Amazon Essentials for clothing.