[themacguffinman]

That's a stretch, Amazon's policies are entirely optional, you don't have to sell on Amazon. It was the seller's self-interested choice to prioritize Amazon placement because consumers love Amazon.

The fact is that consumers continually choose to entrust Amazon the power to pick on their behalf, making it their consumer choice. If sellers leave, consumers often choose Amazon over the seller. Amazon can only "bury" merchants in their search results because consumers continue to be satisfied with what Amazon finds for them. If consumers found Amazon's search results lacking, they can find the missing sellers on other websites. Practically every consumer knows how to buy things online outside of Amazon, a lot of them do it all the time.

Personally, I choose to buy many better and cheaper things outside Amazon. I do not choose Amazon to find any of my stuff. That choice has always been extremely easily available to any consumer, but they don't choose it. Consumers aren't being denied a choice, they have chosen: they chose Amazon's higher fee marketplace.

[Apocryphon]

Be that as it may, it's best to table this conversation until there is more clarity from the DOJ. Without empirical findings, this is just value judgment after value judgment. Let the courts decide. Since that article from last year, Congress has even sought an additional probe for Amazon allegedly obstructing investigations.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/9/22968927/congress-justice-...