Umm, you don't have to buy it though. Noise isn't necessarily a problem unless it stops you finding what you want. Actually, most products (except for the one you want) are just noise. Hence the continuing success of craigslist, ebay, gumtree and so on, despite the low average listing quality.
Actually in a way what whacks me out the most is people's expectation for an "open" marketplace with high average quality.
I don't want an open marketplace. I want somewhere I can conveniently find most things I need from my laptop for a reasonable price.
If Amazon came alone with insane, draconian policies and made it a very closed market, I'd be ok with that as a consumer so long as I can find what I need.
They don't have the range of products you can find on Amazon. If Amazon is supposed to replace Wal-Mart then they need to sell the same range of stuff - and with a certain minimum quality standard.
Anecdotally, 4 or 5 years ago I used to go to Amazon to shop with only a "general idea" of what I wanted to purchase. There were many times when I ended up buying more than I wanted, or something more expensive than I originally intended, because I was influenced by reviews and how the items were presented to me on that site (like "People also bought..." listings).
But after getting burned a few times with products that did not live up to the standards presented in bogus reviews or product rankings, now I only use Amazon for the fast shipping. Instead of spending the majority of my time on Amazon doing the research there, I'm spending it on blog posts, reddit, or YouTube looking at real testimonials and going to Amazon only when my shopping is already done. Those extraneous checkout-line addons are no more.
In this way, Amazon definitely does itself a disservice by (seemingly) shifting their priorities away from what they used to excel at to more "big picture" ideas.
If they can control ever growing swathes of the world's economy, they are not doing themselves a disservice. Maybe they are giving you less service than before, but they are simply doing what big companies do.
Again I said it was anecdotal, meaning that it was just a story that illustrates a point that the parent comments were making. But for fun I decided to look at my order history and found that from 2013 to 2014 the money I spent on Amazon dropped 55%, and from 2014 to 2015 it dropped 86%.
I'm only one customer, but clearly I'm not the only one with a growing frustration, and this case (since that's the only one I can attest to) they're losing real money, and I would cause that a disservice.
Unless either 2014 or 2015 had a negative total, you did the math badly wrong on that "dropped 622%" line (most likely by using the end year rather than the start year as the base.)
But if they are making more money overall being a crappier online store, they are only doing you a disservice, whereas their shareholders would be happy.
People want trustworthy marketplace, not the open marketplace where anything goes. This should be the core learning of last decade that has made Windows apps undesirable but App Store apps highly successful. The wetting price that companies pay is totally worth it and is recovered quite well from fees as well as increased sell. No one wants Amazon to be place where all deceivers can put out their listing as they see fit.
Current major issues are:
1. Sellers can name themselves as they like. For example, you can be a seller with a name of very recognized brand deceiving people that you are official source.
2. Sellers either omit information or publish incorrect one. For example, you can sell toys laden with lead and it would be just fine.
3. Amazon has been amazingly unsuccessful leveraging their own data. For example, they can ask simple question "Are you happy with X that you bought last week?" with just Yes/No and use that information to flag products for reviews. Getting rid of incorrect and incomplete listings can not be optional.
4. Listings are not properly conflated which makes people very confused and forces them to spend lots of time to find the "best" one. For example, there are probably dozen listings for exact same product like Syma 107G helies.
IMO it is a problem. The extra products are a nuisance and they often get in the way of finding the what I wanted.
It wasn't so bad when the only items sold by third parties were obscure and niche products that Amazon didn't carry. It was actually a good indicator that I might be better off going directly to a site dedicated to bike parts or camera equipment or outdoor equipment or whatever.
But now it seems like every time I search for anything I have to filter out a dozen third party or "sponsored" items that I'm not interested in. If I wanted to be uncertain of what I was getting, have a questionable return policy, and get crappy non-Prime shipping, I wouldn't have went to Amazon in the first place.
Actually in a way what whacks me out the most is people's expectation for an "open" marketplace with high average quality.