Well, this is a direct consequence of allowing the marketplaces to "vertically integrate" with their own brands. Imagine you poured a year of work into finding

Well, this is a direct consequence of allowing the marketplaces to "vertically integrate" with their own brands. Imagine you poured a year of work into finding product/market fit and creating a truly great product. You put it for sale on Walmart/Amazon, and what happens next? Amazon's algorithms find you among 100s of less successful sellers, your product gets knocked off as "Amazon basics", produced at scale you cannot afford, so you end up taking all the risks, and Amazon takes all the profit. So the only business models that not vulnerable under these rules of the game are small-time grift, semi-automated Aliexpress resellers, very niche products and huge established brands that can compete with the platform owners in terms of scale.