I agree - it is not a complete ‘physical’ crowding out - yet. But when prices are skimmed, the eyes settle on the cheapest very quickly and anyone not in or near that ball park tends not to get looked at. (Hence the inverted commas around ‘see’ and ‘lose sight of’ - they are perfectly visible but the viewer tends to notice them less, perhaps.)
It is technically ‘pricing out’ of the market rather than ‘crowding out’ so you are correct, but online it can, I feel, more easily become ‘crowding out of the market’ because of how online (and Amazon especially) operates. In a store, brands often pay for shelf space so brands and own-brands are side-by-side and the retailer still makes a good margin on the brands. Online, does Amazon make a good enough margin from brands to incentivise it to sell/promote them? Can it make the same margin (and volume) from own-brands? Too many questions, but I fear the direction of travel may reduce variety and choice in the marketplace, at the end of the day when low-cost ‘brands’ can no longer compete.
ETA thinking about it, the sponsored search results/adverts on Amazon are the equivalent of paying for shelf space.
