Because they make more money selling ads than they do selling their own products? Can't sell the ads unless merchants are using the marketplace though. Whole foods isn't necessary to sell the camera tech to competitors.

Is that even true though? I thought they frequently copied merchants’ products as Amazon Basics if they were selling well? Because if that’s true, it means they’d rather have the business themselves than advertise for someone else (at least in some categories).

Or they incentivize/empower teams to find revenue without an overarching strategy, and then periodically rationalize what they have.