Amazon uses both tacit and explicit "#MostFavoredNation" deals to hide these price-hikes. Under an MFN deal, sellers must not allow their goods to be sold at a lower price than Amazon's - so when they raise prices to cover Amazon's increasing fees, they raise them everywhere:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/

It's not hard to understand why Amazon would raise its fees: the company has an effective e-commerce monopoly.

6/

Amazon binds its sellers over to something called #MostFavoredNation status. That means that sellers can't offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon - even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to the price of their goods *everywhere else*, too.

25/

Not only that, but the Big Three's deal with Spotify includes a #MostFavoredNation clause, which means that the independent artists who aren't under Sony/UMG/Warner's thumb have to take the rock-bottom rate the Big Three insisted on - likewise the small labels who compete with the Big Three.

23/

Once sellers couldn't afford to leave Amazon because of customers, and customers couldn't afford to leave Amazon because of sellers, the company shifted the surplus to *itself*. It imposed impossible fees on sellers - Amazon's $31b/year "advertising" business is just payola - and when sellers raised prices to cover those fees, Amazon used #MostFavoredNation contracts to force sellers to raise prices everywhere else.

24/

Here's how that works: one of the unfavorable terms Amazon forces on sellers is #MostFavoredNation status (#MFN), which means that Amazon sellers have to offer their lowest price on Amazon - they can't sell more cheaply anywhere else.

11/