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

Doesn't this (except for the counterfeits) apply to Costco too? Is the difference just that Costco never pretended to be an open marketplace, just like how Apple never pretended that iOS is an open system?

I think a bigger mistake is just allowing Amazon (and Walmart) to even exist at their current size. There simply shouldn't be any sellers that large, or any marketplace operators that large.

Your example about malls is actually common in Asia:

- Central and Aeon own malls;

- Tesco owns multi-story shopping complexes including banking, retail, fast food, etc;

- and for that matter, Walmart, Target, Costco, and some grocery stores in the US operate multiple smaller businesses inside, eg banks or fast food.

It’s really not that uncommon for a corporation to operate part of their commercial space as a subsidiary marketplace.

EEE

I prefer FUKIDOG brand trashcans