I was briefly in contact with folks in a team at Amazon who said they were working on fixing the fake review problem. I ultimately didn't pursue a role there because I just don't really trust Amazon as an employer. (I worked there previously and got burned badly.)

Incidentally, I had also been in contact with Facebook about a role "combatting abuse" across their services. That loop was a bait and switch for standard ML (eg, improve video recommendations for users to keep their eyeballs on FB).

I try to assume good intentions, but I'm constantly given evidence that there are no good intentions in these companies. I don't think Amazon really has any reason to combat fake reviews. And I know a good number of engineers and scientists there. It's a tractable problem.

Its so bewildering to me that Amazon doesn't do this.

People are catching on to the low quality of the reviews on amazon and once that credibility is gone, its never coming back.

Their supply chain is a pretty strong moat but its not insurmountable.

People have been saying this for a number of years, now, and Amazon only grows faster. Tools like this may have actually contributed to that growth, since they make shopping on Amazon safer, ironically.

Amazon has the same advantage that Microsoft had in the 90s: everybody else is even less competent.

I don’t agree. The advantage both had/have is a level of scale and brand inertia which makes it financially near-impossible for alternatives to grow large enough to compete.

I dont know how, but I assume that all the fake shit being sold on amazon is very profitable for them. I assume they have a strong motivation to protect and foster all the fake shit, cus that's what they appear to be doing to the best of their ability (Reminds me of 'content-farm' videos on youtube)

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Also, If its not profit, there must be some 'perverse incentive' at some level of the company to act as they do.

It also raises the question, "Why can't there be substitute apps/services on the Apple App store?"

So what if Amazon can or even does do it? There should be multiple apps offering the same service available to Apple customers. This doesn't make sense.

That isn't their argument. They are arguing that any results that differ from their own ratings are false by definition because it is duplicative. If fakespot always gave the identical ratings, they'd have to make a different argument.

Amazon doesn't officially acknowledge that any specific product listings are fakes. An app that exposes the truth will naturally be different from what Amazon claims.

Product listing hijacks have been a known problem for years... and you can still do it today. A lot of the time I get something it comes with a business card offering a discount for a positive review... aliexpress reviews seem more reliable at this point.