Subject:
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Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 10 Feb 1999 07:38:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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552 times
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<snip>
> The problem lies not in the act of being outbid but in a poorly designed
> system -- a system designed for the cashflow & glory of the system's
> designers and sellers rather than in the best interests of the buyers.
I agree that [eBay's] system has more than a few loose hoses, but
designed for the cashflow and glory of the designers and sellers? All
the grumbling about eBay doesn't point to very much glory, and the
cashflow would be higher if eBay instituted FirstAuction's/Yahoo's
five-minute extension policy.
> But you don't know what the maximum is that you're willing to pay. You
> can't. No one can. It's an imaginary concept. Strike it from your memory.
> It doesn't exist. If you believe it does, then you are either wrong or not
> human.
<laughing> Well, I have to admit that I don't think myself wrong, and I
also have to admit of being accused of the latter on more than one
occasion (to be sure, they weren't bad things; they just had never heard
a human imitation of a motorcycle before :).
I don't see anything inhuman about being able to determine what
something is worth to me for a finite period of time. I certainly won't
claim to be 100% accurate in divining that value, but I will push 99%.
<snipped more since an issue comes up again later on>
> > course I'd be willing to go a little more if it means digging up some
> > change out of the couch!". What, and the other guy wouldn't? Those two
> > people I mentioned earlier must have thought they had $2000 worth of
> > change in their couch. :) The reason "sniping" has become such an issue
> > on online auction services is because most bidders are looking to pay
> > the least amount they can, when that's not the way auctions work for any
> > online or real-life formats.
>
> Either that or (independent of how much they're willing to pay) they know
> that sniping works on eBay and proxy bidding without sniping doesn't work.
Their sniping didn't work, because they both made the false assumption
that they were going to be the last sniper standing. Proxy bidding
without sniping always works for me. I either get the product I want, or
I prevent myself from spending more than I wanted to.
<snip>
> > If I bid $50 at the beginning of an
> > auction, and at the last minute someone jumps in with $50.01 (and this
> > has happened to me), more power to 'em. That's one cent more than I
> > would have honestly been willing to pay.
>
> I don't believe that for a second. I must be misunderstanding you. Let me
> see if I understand what you're saying... You're saying that you'd
> willingly pay $50.00 for something, but you wouldn't pay $50.01?
That did sound ridiculous, didn't it. :) To clarify: Yes, that's
exactly right, but there's more to that 1 cent than just the money. In
addition to deciding what I'm willing to spend monetarily on something
at an auction service, I'm also making a *time* commitment. The person
who ekes in that extra $0.01 is also spending a half an hour on their
sniper perch. So yes, if they're willing to spend 1 cent plus one half
hour more than I, more power to 'em. That's more than the total time +
money I'm willing to expend.
> Do you honestly believe that you can decide ahead of time how much you're
> willing to pay for something -- down to a dividing line of $0.01 -- and
To the cent is extreme (very, huh? :), but within a couple percent
(usually a couple of dollars)? Absolutely.
> stick to it? If that's true, then I submit that you are doing some serious
> rationalization to cope with eBay's twisted system.
(My 'net connection timed out while thinking about it.) That could be.
Yet I take the same approach to other auction services as well,
including real life auctions. I don't believe that they're all
inherently flawed, yet I get the same results from this approach no
matter the medium/form of auction. If I've rationalized eBay's faults,
and my method of rationalization works for all forms of auctions, than
either all auctions share these faults, or my approach happened to be
immune to eBay's particular flaws. I really can't believe the former,
and the latter sounds pretty circumstantial. Maybe there's something
else I'm missing?
> > If I was going to quibble over
> > couch change (or much more), I should have made that part of my original
> > bid.
>
> You can't. The eBay system doesn't allow it. This is the heart of the
> problem. This is WHY people hate eBay.
Ugh--pardon my bad English--that's "If I *were* going...". It's getting
late.
I'm not sure I understand correctly what you're saying. We can make any
original bid we desire. If you meant that eBay's system of rigid time
limits prevent accurate bid changes or "quibbling", then I think that we
may need to agree to disagree on the importance of being able to do so.
Adam
bwappo@ee.net
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| (...) Sure, look at how successful the whole thing is from Wall Street's point of view: eBay's stock has been trading in the $200-$300 range for the past two months. On the day of their IPO last November, several people became instant millionaires (...) (26 years ago, 10-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: CFD: e-bay (aka ranting and raving)
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| (...) I've been lurking on this thread but I have to jump in here. (...) It's very simple: Because people don't know what they're willing to pay. They think they're mad at the other bidder, but what they're actually mad at (without usually knowing (...) (26 years ago, 10-Feb-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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