There is no perfect system that protects buyers and sellers. Change the rules and buyers will be complaining. The reason it is skewed towards buyers is: 1) who in there right mind would buy something online where there is no protection (sellers aren't the same as they have to sell somewhere to make a living). 2) most buyers are honest who just want their item. Profiting from fraud as a buyer is a lot more work as the…
Buyers also generally have to buy somewhere, especially for necessities. The difference is that finding a place to buy is easier than finding a place to sell.
> 2) most buyers are honest who just want their item. Profiting from fraud as a buyer is a lot more work as they need to resell the item to gain currency, which is risky (both from exposing themselves to stolen item investigations as well as being a victim of fraud themselves as a seller).
You don't have to just resell to profit. Just buy stuff you want anyways then complain.
> 3) imagine if sellers could just ship rocks to buyers instead of cameras without consequence. Every scammer and his dog would be in on the gig without 5 seconds. (1) becomes even more bleak.
The current system works because there are many buyers and few sellers. Most people are honest. And everyone buys things. But most people don't sell things. Skewing in favor of the buyer makes it so the few sellers aren't overrun by fraudsters. If even 10% of the dishonest people in the world were actively selling stuff on Amazon, it would probably be a huge problem.