I don't think that's a fair comparison. It would be like if Amazon owned the entire mall, and would kick out competitors and establish their own stores once they become profitable.
Amazon is both a retailer in the sense that they sell products, but also owns the entire marketplace as well.
They are also so good at building malls that they own the construction company and the supply chain of raw goods for the construction efforts (AWS). They use their scale to cut costs for construction globally so it doesn't make economic sense for others to build without them. Even some of their competitors use their construction company to build their vision of what a mall looks like. All the while Amazon is gaining valuable insights they can steal to use on their own malls.
How is that functionally different from identifying a product that is selling well, making your own version of it, and selling that at the identified best or lower price from the data generated by the third party? Sure they may still list the third party (in direct competition in the same marketplace) but that doesn't mean they aren't acting extremely anticompetitive for a marketplace.
It would be like if Amazon owned the entire mall, and would kick out competitors and establish their own stores once they become profitable.
Just wait. It may happen.
During the pandemic some of the big mall companies bought their tenants, either out of bankruptcy, or at crazy cheap prices.
At first it looked like the malls were just doing it to keep the lights on and the storefronts occupied. Now there's more and more people saying the mall companies may try to become "Amazon In Real Life."
To me, it sounds like Department Stores 2.0. But it'll be interesting to see if it actually happens.
To abuse this analogy further - if they also put signs for their owns stores in front of the other stores signage, or redesign the mall to direct people away from the competitors - that seems less fine.
What if there's multiple other malls just across the street? As is the case in online retail. Even easier than crossing the street, to be honest, just click that second result in Google instead of the first. Is it so hard to admit that Amazon's customers are using them because their offering is great and not because of lack of alternatives?
Amazon has always used dark patterns with their 3rd party sellers. They even restrict the price sellers can charge on products they sell on Amazon and their own website. This ensures Amazon will be the lowest price.
In this analogy, that would mean you have a store inside the mall and right across the street. Amazon sees you are selling products cheaper across the street since rent across the street is way cheaper than inside the mall. Amazon then says either you charge the same price in the mall or you get kicked out. You could call Amazon's bluff but most sellers are not risking their seller accounts.
Amazon is both a retailer in the sense that they sell products, but also owns the entire marketplace as well.