alt Hacker NewsIt is a well-documented fact that Amazon forces it's sellers to "fix" their prices to match the Amazon price. If you sell on Amazon, you're not allowed to sell the same item for less ANYWHERE. This- coupled with Amazon's insane fees- should be a huge red flag to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and maybe a Attorney General can get them to do their damn job and crack down on it... I wouldn't hold my breath though.
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The biggest mistake we've made is allowing Amazon (and now Walmart) to both be a seller and to operate what is supposed to be an open marketplace
It's insane that the landlord of the mall is also running the biggest store in the mall
It's led to this scheme, but also just the general enshittification of buying things online. You can never trust what you buy from Amazon because their "marketplace sellers" will send you a counterfeit, and it's hard to find some brand names because they don't want to be in that cesspool
As low rent and lowest common denominator as Walmart was in the 90s, at least I could go in and know that a) I probably was getting the lowest price on that Rubbermaid trash can b) it was legitimately a Rubbermaid trashcan and not someone who ripped off the molds, used plastic that was 50% as good, and sells it under the brand Xyxldk, and c) could reasonably expect to find that trashcan offered for sale in the first place
Similar to the shit they're doing on Audible, too. If you want to be part of their subscription service, then you cannot sell your book anywhere else, including your own website, or have it available in libraries. And if you're not part of their subscription service, then part of your sale proceeds gets diverted to authors who are part of the subscription service [0].
https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2025/12/18/how-w...
Why amazon sellers have not opened up a class action lawsuit is beyond me. This case, succeed or fail will surface enough documentation that they may find cause.
This is why Andy Jassy was a big supporter of BLM in the Biden era and is now funding the Melania documentary in the Trump era. Amazon bribes each administration to avoid the law. Many companies do this though, not just them. Companies worth more than a trillion shouldn’t exist, yet here they are corrupting our entire system.
You definitely shouldn't hold your breath considering the CFPB effectively doesn't exist anymore.