The principle would be that companies aren’t allow to buy placement. It would be like a phonebook.

That would require regulation, as a catalog maker isn’t going to turn down what is effectively free money. This also doesn’t translate well to a physical store with more constraints on space.

I recently got a catalog where everything was on pretty even footing. There was the occasional photo with someone wearing stuff, but it was a smattering of random brands, big and small. Nothing in it looked paid for. It was a catalog of stuff made in the US. The meat of the catalog was text that listed 1 item in a category per brand, when the brand may have had hundreds. A brand with literally one product was indistinguishable from a major brand. I actually found this quite frustrating as a potential buyer. If I was interested in a category I had to manually go to every single website to see what they actually had and if it was something I was interested in. There was no way to cut through the noise, other than my own past experience with companies that had some brand recognition (from advertising elsewhere).

Yes, instead they register 1 million businesses that will all be listed in the phonebook.

How do you sort the directory? Alphabetical can be gamed with names like A1 Locksmith. Chronological favors incumbents or spammers depending on direction.

Which company is on page 1?