There are several persistent imbalances that make this inevitable. Consumers are always facing a collective action problem when trying to evaluate and punish vendors, while vendors can act unilaterally. Vendors also have more money so things like legal intimidation (or hiring PIs[1]) are options available to them.

The only advantage I can see for consumers is agility in adopting new tools - the internet, reddit, now LLM. But this head start doesn't last forever.

[1] https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...