> I suspect that anything that rises to the best-seller level gets examined by Amazon very closely.
I think you’re vastly overestimating how much Amazon cares.
See their physical goods store: it’s also a race to the bottom with zero oversight whatsoever (commingling, counterfeits, used/returned/dirty items sold as new…) I don’t see why the virtual books store would be any different.
Amazon wrote the proverbial book on enshitification/race to the bottom :(
Amazon wouldn't do that because that would cost them more money (the payout to authors is based on that).
The authors would have an incentive to do that, but Amazon does their best to prevent it (again, because it costs them money).
I suspect that anything that rises to the best-seller level gets examined by Amazon very closely.