This viewpoint fails to consider the nontrivial competitive advantage gained by building customer loyalty. There are plenty of brands that do well despite higher prices, longer waits, etc due to their consistent positive interactions with customers; A culture of trust between customer and company is frequently worth the cost.

Amazon seems to have decided that the higher margins of counterfeits and prioritizing ads over search quality are worth the loss of user trust. I wholeheartedly hope this will be a costly miscalculation on their part, as I would prefer a marketplace with fewer ads and reliably genuine items.