But.. that's how a lot of products have always worked.

I think the difference is that before a lot of white-label product factories would cut territory-based deals with resellers, so in (for example) the US, that widget is called "Acme Widget" but in France that exact same widget is called "Le Widget Magnifique".

Around the world there might be 100+ companies selling that same product but typically not competing with each other because they would each have exclusive markets.

But now with these global marketplaces, that same approach feels weird exactly because you can suddenly see the same exact products being sold under different names, and it's a lot easier for any random business to white-label a product and reach a global audience.

The difference is that many big brands will vet the products before they put their name and warranty on it.

Amazon is a free for all when factories can just direclty dump their garbage. There is no brand recognition or reputation. It's all just random character strings attached to random products. If a QUENTOC dog leash is prone to snap and whiplash your face, they can just dump the brand and move on.

Sure, but before it didn't bother me because I didn't have to browse through eight pages of search results that show the same four products over and over again with different brands slapped on before I might find a fifth one that suits my needs better. If you're lucky they're all using the same images, but sometimes there's a couple of variations so it takes you a couple seconds for each listing to figure out if it's one of the four you already seen a dozen times and don't want.

Totally fair, the dynamic has changed and so has the customer experience..

That's fine. I'm just waiting for the day when the Chinese brands will stop using that insipid default Latin alphabet serif font that they use 90% of the time for labeling buttons and GUIs.