That's one possible benefit. But try to compete with Amazon on price directly; many (now former) sellers reported having their accounts under review shortly aft

That's one possible benefit. But try to compete with Amazon on price directly; many (now former) sellers reported having their accounts under review shortly after (often leading to permanent selling rights removal - there's always some odd item that you might have in your huge catalog, even if you never sold one, that might be interpreted as not allowed on Amazon) and nowadays many small operations just try to avoid competing on items Amazon sells itself because of fear of getting kicked out. That's not beneficial to customers at all. So basically Amazon might be heading to be in this mode: - allow 3rd party sellers/manufacturers to sell items - once items are hot and are easily clonable, start manufacturing them - let original manufacturers bleed or kick them out if they compete on price with you - wait for another batch of sellers to identify next hot item - repeat