How is it that somebody here will always manage to blame the victim, no matter how obviously absurd that is?
Amazon was originally the seller for everything they offered. In an important sense, they still are: we still shop on their site, still give them money, and still mostly receive the goods from them.
Amazon could have chosen differently, but didn't, because they were looking to dominate e-commerce. they set it up like this, and could undo it in a moment if they wanted. If you're looking to blame somebody, blame the person with the most power over the situation, not the person with the least.
How are they supposed to prevent counterfit goods, besides banning all third party sales, or inspecting millions of items? There isn't a reasonable fix except issuing refunds when it happens and banning accounts, or not having 3rd party sales at all, which isn't reasonable.
Exactly this. If Amazon can't police their marketplace then bad luck, you thought you had become more competitive by solving real world problems with tech, but actually you had just found novel ways to ignore the law. "I can't comply with the law because that would break my novel business idea", is exactly the thing that I keep hearing from tech companies, and it is the same level of nonsense as complaining that trading-standards (or whatever you guys have in the US) shut down for market stall for selling knock-off goods.
If the goods are on your site, then you are responsible for them being there. Sure it costs a lot, like it costs a lot to run an auction house. Boo hoo
So they hire tens of thousands of inspectors? Specialists at spotting fake SD cards? Specialists at spotting fake perfume? Specialsts at spotting fake Nike's? Do they disassemble each product as it comes in and inspect it? How much do they break it down?
None of this is realistic. We're commenting on an article that says Amazon has half of the e-commerce biz right now. The small but vocal contingent on HN might seem to make it that counterfeit goods are rampant everywhere but it's not the case.
It is perfectly realistic that that stay out of businesses they can't competently run.
For most of history people selling things had an understanding of what they were selling. If Amazon can't meet that standard for some products, or for third-party sellers as whole, they can just stop.
Alternatively, they could set up a separate site. Something like "Caveat Emptor" or "Bezos's Dubious Flea Market". Something that doesn't trade on the Amazon brand and create confusion between responsible vendors and fly-by-night operations.
That you can't or won't think of a way to do something without harming megacorp short-term profits doesn't make it "unrealistic" to address a recently create problem. I leave it to you to figure out what it does mean.
They should make a strong UI distinction between "we got this from the manufacturer or one of their authorized resellers" and "this is some random guy in China selling on our version of eBay".
It is not my problem to solve, it is Amazon's. If they can't solve it then they need to go back to selling their own stock. If this makes them less money than facilitating a crime, then so be it.
Amazon was originally the seller for everything they offered. In an important sense, they still are: we still shop on their site, still give them money, and still mostly receive the goods from them.
Amazon could have chosen differently, but didn't, because they were looking to dominate e-commerce. they set it up like this, and could undo it in a moment if they wanted. If you're looking to blame somebody, blame the person with the most power over the situation, not the person with the least.