The problem is not people making money with dropshipping. The problem is that these countries and their people do nothing to fight children exploitation and bad work conditions. You didn't mention any big companies like Amazon, Ebay, H&M, the big fashion firms... they all exploit the poorer eastern countries to produce their products, which we happily buy and nobody complains about it. Even if those big companies handle the products and keep them in stock, does it make it less disgusting when you think about the exploited children?
I have the solution to fight this problem: make eastern people realise that their work is worth much more.
But on the other hand... what would those "children" do, if they were not allowed to work? I guess there are no schools around having empty seats.
Not so easy. And they would not work, if their families would not need the money. So if you just take this money from them, will their lifes become easier or better?
And how big do you think are the chances that the respective country will spend money onto those families to compensate the loss of the child income? In a scenario where exactly this state suddenly earns less taxes, as there are now less workers working?
And how would realize their worth do them any good? If they woul start to strike for better salaries, the company owner would just move to the next country and our striking workers will have 0 income from this point on. How would this make their lifes better?
And the workers in the country the company owner moved to will now very likely not even think of a strike. They can see in their news what happened to the guys who striked. This was not nice and the new guys rather work hard 14 hours shifts in the factory, as this is still better than their lifes before.
Don't get me wrong: I don't think this is good or should be this way. But it is much, much more complicated than one usually thinks.
In the "western countries" we fought for workers rights, and it was a bloody fight that lasted many years. Now, the political right parties are taking those rights back and we have less work opportunities, less pay, less rights, contracts in favour of the employers etc. This hasn't happened yet in "eastern countries" but I hope it will happen soon.
The OP says the problem is people abusing "dropshipping", while that's just the tip of the iceberg. One might argue that without dropshipping the exploited workers wouldn't even make that little money they do. In some countries, for cultural issues and simple "being used to it", people don't fight because they risk of loosing the little they have.
During the big wars period workers had little rights all around the world. That changed when they started fighting the system, striking and they gained what we have now. Well, we're losing it again with the political right parties pushing in favour of the employers.
It all depends on us! To quote the Beastie Boys: you gotta fight for your right (to party)
I know this is not the main thing which causes the problem with exploiting people - as I've said, I'm also guilty of wearing some H&M tshirts...But I find this even a lever higher - when I go to H&M, I go there to save money. People who do dropshipping are actually making extra money on top of shopping in H&M.
I don't think stopping dropshipping would change things immediately - compared to big companies, those couple of thousands dropshippers' earnings are peanuts. I'm just disgusted how proud they carry themselves, as if they really were real enterpreneurs...that's what makes me really angry.
Also, if all dropshippers would realize what they do, the actual harm would not change much. But what would maybe change is the percentage of people who are actually willing to actively exploit. I guess there are hundreds of big company bosses (responsible for +90% of the export from asia) but there are thousands and thousands of people who are willing to do dropshipping. If they'd realize it's bad, suddenly the ratio in society would massively shift towards opposing the whole abuse of cheap workforce. And that could be the beginning in the whole market mentality change etc etc... At least I hope
Isn't that a market law? Buy low, sell high. Where you found the products or what you do with them is not relevant. (as long as you're in the legality, of course)
I feel your disgust for such people who also feel like the smartest on Earth, but setting up a website or using a sell/buy app for "dropshipping" still requires some efforts to create and maintain. It's not like they get dropshipping for free, even though it's not a big effort it still requires some.
Searching through those websites for products is actually very time consuming and most people don't have the patience or will to sit for hours hunting cheap products. They just want a quick way to buy nice products at a good price. Even if the original price was much lower and the dropshippers are earning a lot, for the final consumer that's still a good price and they saved up a lot of time searching around.
It was a nice article anyways, it sparked many thoughts :)