can't speak for the quality in recent years, but i bought a amazon basics laptop backpack some years ago and it's held up better than some "name brand" gear i've had.
It goes one way or the other for me but nothing in between. Either it's better than the others or absolute garbage that falls apart almost immediately. It's a bit of a mindfuck
A lot of it is because Amazon is known for stealing designs from innovative, small companies and running them out of business to sell their stolen designs under the Amazon Basics brand. Usually they do so by decreasing the quality of materials and relying on their own supply chain to keep prices low.
Edit: Also found this Youtube video by Peak Design, who are very well known for their high quality gear. It's about Amazon ripping off their sling bag design.
when going generic, i've found it's best to stick with supplies that don't really matter and easy to replace if it sucks--aluminum foil, trash bags, etc
if you want to pay extra money to buy the "real" product from the actual brand's website to avoid giving amazon any money, then go ahead. i'll buy the cheaper thing that works just as well
oh i don't think Amazon leaves anything out of their control anymore. if that label is for the most picked for a term the it's because they manipulated the search. but I'm thinking it's just a sticker that they put on things they want to sell and also manipulate the search results.
I see it pop up on random products, even ones with bad review score, so I'm not sure it even has any logic. There's some product categories where the brand name product with good reviews doesn't get the "Amazon's choice" label, but some knockoff Chinese brand that isn't even much cheaper does.
Hate to admit it but yea. They can make them at better than cheap trash quality and keep the price at trash quality cause they have the supply chain and bulk to not lose money on em. I've gone into their Amazon fresh shops and really love some of their products. Their peanut butter is pretty darn good, and the only better strawberry jelly I've had besides small farm stuff is Knotts berry farm.