I've been a publisher on KDP for more than 10 years. Automated lockouts and unresolvable technical issues are the norm for Amazon's seller and publisher tech.

I've been a publisher on KDP for more than 10 years. Automated lockouts and unresolvable technical issues are the norm for Amazon's seller and publisher tech. * Features are rolled out quickly. They are often in a half-baked state, or are implemented with a poor understanding of the needs of authors and suppliers. * Edge cases are numerous and handled poorly. * Because the barriers to entry are so low, KDP and Seller Central are magnets for passive income hustles that exploit technical or policy loopholes. For instance, the KENP scam started out about 10 years ago, using internal links to fool Amazon into thinking a book had been read in its entirety to maximize KDP Select payouts. It has since evolved to leverage AI-generated content and click farms (https://nicholasrossis.me/2023/08/23/understanding-the-kenp-scam/ https://nicholasrossis.me/2023/08/23/understanding-the-kenp-...). * New policies and technical fixes designed to head off the scammers lead to false positives and automated lockouts. For instance, good luck if some algorithm thinks you're posting fake reviews. * Automated support is deeply flawed, and very frustrating to deal with, as TFA describes. * Human support can't keep up with the sheer number of cases and situations. * Amazon is very siloed. I've heard that teams are encouraged to come up with competing products and then "fight it out" (rumor had it this is what happened after Createspace lost out to the KDP team with paperback print on demand). Support teams from different groups do not work well with each other, and resolving problems that touch more than one team can turn into a nightmare as neither group wants to own the problem.