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Susan, I don't want to start a brawl with you but I disagree with
several of the points you're making. You're new here, so you may not
know me and my stances, which I do not hesitate to articulate, and which
I do so quite vigorously.
Don't take this personally, it's just me, being a (dogmatic???)
libertarian. I cannot let your statements go unchallenged, although I
have no issue whatever with you as a person.
Susan Olson wrote:
>
> In lugnet.market.theory, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> > It's interesting to note that on AuctionWatch's own discussion forum,
> > the vast majority of posters that I have read so far are taking eBay's
> > side in this.
> >
> > http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=2&thread=139062
>
>
> Larry I think you'll find that the vast majority of AW posters are primarily
> bidders -
In this thread I refer to on AW, many of them are sellers. Perhaps most.
At least as of the time of this writing.
> since most sellers know that ebaY is the only viable game in town, I
> say right on to the DOJ and check it out before it becomes impossible for small
> sellers to sell at ebaY in competition with power sellers
I am a small seller and I have no issues competing with power sellers. I
have 61 absolutely stellar feedbacks at this point and my lots usually
get better ending prices because my listings are better and because I
give good (if slow) service...
> and as the amount of
> utter dreck for sale on ebaY increases (this includes the "not found in stores
> [but available from Shop At Home] latest Lego sets phenomenon).
This may well be true but beside the point. If action needs to be taken
against unscrupulous sellers that is indeed a legal matter, but not a
matter for antitrust. It's a matter for the fraud division.
> If ebaY stays
> the only way to be guaranteed lots of eyeballs whan you want to sell, then
> antitrust is a real possibility.
Hot button warning, plowed ground warning, libertarian dogma warning...
- antitrust is a flawed notion to start with, in general monopolies
should not be illegal, only the notion that the government can create
monopolies (utilities, for example) should be.
- Market domininance is not a reason in and of itself to apply the
antitrust laws as they are written.
- This investigation is not at the behest of other sites, it's at the
behest of consolidators. Hence DOJ is just fishing for something to
crusade against in an election year rather than actually doing something
useful.
> How often do folks here list Legos at sites
> other than ebaY? When they do, how often are they sure they're getting top
> dollar and that some one on ebaY (be it savvy Lego fiend or clueless newbie)
> wouldn't have paid more?
True but beside the point. It is not eBay's duty to make it easier for
their competitors to get a toehold. It is not eBay's duty to provide
free access to data that eBay spent money to collect (it costs money to
run servers, after all) to 'bots that are gathering that data for use by
companies that want to mess with eBay's business model.
That, at bottom, is what this is about. eBay does NOT have to provide
data on its servers to whoever appears. The internet is NOT free, and it
is legitimate for the person hosting data to put whatever strictures on
acccess to the data that they wish. Unless the bot companies are
proposing to provide some sort of payment for the bandwidth they absorb,
they're stealing. And even if they offer, unless eBay accepts, they're
still stealing.
> AW and BiddersEdge
> weren't totally at fault for the slowdowns - most of that was ebaY attempting to
> limp along on inadequate hardware and NO onsite technical support folks)
That may be true but it's also beside the point. eBay has the right to
spend its resources as it sees fit and it has no obligation to spend
money to provide bandwidth to bots. Even if the slowdown is .001% due to
the bots. Let the market decide whether eBay is spending its resources
adequately.
Now, much of the internet DOES allow bots to search it. That's because
there is a benefit to the information providers to letting the bots find
them. eBay is deriving no benefit, or chooses to feel that it does not
(makeing any arguments about increased listing traffic moot) and
therefore is well within its rights to restrict access.
At the root, this is NOT an antitrust issue, it is an issue of eBay
having the right to do what it sees fit with its property.
I suggest that if we want to debate this in depth we trim market.theory
and set followups to off-topic.debate only.
--
Larry Pieniazek - larryp@novera.com - http://my.voyager.net/lar
http://www.mercator.com. Mercator, the e-business transformation company
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.
Note: this is a family forum!
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