Profit motive is next level motivation. It affords a level of continuous effort where passion motives wear out over time.

Put another way: if a single unsatisfied customer is able to take down a product then there must be dozens or hundreds of profit motivated take downs. The article is not naming an exact competitor, but dismissing the accusation as "it could be an entirely different random person" does not change the issue's substance: Amazon is broken.

> if a single unsatisfied customer is able to take down a product then there must be dozens or hundreds of profit motivated take downs

Not sure what the intent of this observation is - the same is just as true: 'if a single competitor is able to take down a product then there must be dozens or hundreds of profit motivated take downs'.

> The article is not naming an exact competitor, but dismissing the accusation as "it could be an entirely different random person" does not change the issue's substance: Amazon is broken.

Considering there are only so many no-buckle belt vendors, stating that it obviously a competitor casts aspersions on these other vendors without any evidence. But no, it indeed does not change the substantive critique of Amazon.

Could be an attempted blackmail. The intended victim just assumed it was a competitor and did not look hard enough for the ransom note.

This seems likelier since, as you say belt manufacturers are few, but blackmailers can go for anything anywhere.