Sounds better than a city full of shops designed to separate people from their money buying stuff they don’t need.
Life is about building memories, connecting with people and sharing experiences. Having a variety of places to do that (update: including shops) is nice in my opinion.
Various hypotheses. Money laundering, VAT scamming, tax abuse, or just outrageous profiteering based on never being around when the bill for VAT or business rates come due.
There is one famous, very real, very popular American candy store in London -- Kingdom Of Sweets -- which is absolutely legit and has been trading for twenty years, having started elsewhere. It was famous in British geek culture for being where you bought all the sweets you heard US geeks talking about on Foothills and Surfers and the like.
And then there's a couple of likely legit competitors, and then... a whole layer of fakery, fraud and shell companies.
It can't be disputed that (central) London is one of the world's biggest tourist attractions, and much of it is geared towards activities. But it's far from the only factor to life in a city that's larger, more diverse, and more distinctive than ever. It's one of the most varied places in the entire world when it comes to demography, wealth, cultures, and opportunities – is this a bad thing?
Eh? This is a giant microwave telecom tower. They're all over the world (find a large city that doesn't have a convenient nearby hill, and there are probably one or two) and they're ~all disused. Fibre made them essentially useless decades ago, and the London one doesn't even have its antennae anymore.
It's presumably listed, so they can't just demolish it. What do you _want_ them to do with it, if not this?
Life is about building memories, connecting with people and sharing experiences. Having a variety of places to do that (update: including shops) is nice in my opinion.