
How Facebook, MySpace and YouTube Killed eBay - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/23/how-facebook-myspace-and-youtube-killed-ebay/
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axod
Next up at TechCrunch, how Twitter killed Google... Twitter rumored to be
acquiring Apple... Apple rumored to be releasing a budget mp3 player priced at
$10... How TechCrunch killed the entire newspaper industry...

Seriously. It's just getting ridiculous now. TC - get back to reporting news -
you know, facts.

~~~
ivankirigin
The guest author is really well known and a former EVP at PayPal. He knows
what he's talking about.

~~~
elq
paypal was acquired in 2002, he continued on at eBay for 3 weeks.

This is not evidence that he knows what he's talking about wrt why eBay is
dying.

eBay's current pain has nothing to do with "fun" or "the rise of social
networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook and the likes of YouTube", and
everything to do with trying to become amazon (via ebayexpress) and google
(via the never publicly mentioned K2 project).

~~~
potatolicious
I'd argue that Amazon has a larger hand in killing eBay than anything else.
After the initial surge of "let's sell every used thing on eBay" was over, it
became a marketplace for, well, businesses that sell new stuff.

In the end eBay was just a discount portal to new products - and Amazon did
that one a million times better, in terms of selection, ease of use, security,
and customer service. I mean this from both the consumer and seller
perspectives.

Good riddance to eBay.

~~~
elq
Agreed on all points.

eBay becoming a portal for discounted goods was a direct result of the desire
of Meg to compete with amazon. It was remarkably stupid.

If eBay would've listened to many of its employees re: shipping fees, fraud,
and something called the ePD; eBay would have owned the used good marketplace.

Instead they largely ignored fraud, and graft; let the core auction platform
languish (with the most bizarre rationalization that I ever heard); and in end
simply pissed away community goodwill and internal resources competing with
ghosts.

eBay will slowly rot because of this stupidity. Good riddance indeed.

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quoderat
Ebay wasn't killed by Facebook or YouTube.

Ebay was killed by its own ignorance and avarice -- in that it first began to
ignore and later became actively hostile to the very things that had made it
popular (small, private auctions), in favor of letting large businesses
dominate the site, removing all value for people like me.

I haven't been there in years, and I used to sell my old computer hardware
there regularly.

Now, I use Craigslist, and will for the foreseeable future.

~~~
zouhair
I use Craiglist and Kijiji as well.

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asb
I'm interested in the author's perspective, but this piece seemed to end quite
abruptly and failed to go into much detail about what the author believes
happened to eBay. He states "In a futile effort to compete with Amazon and
Google, eBay leadership essentially stripped whatever remaining fun existed
out of its marketplace." - does anybody know what changes were made to remove
the 'fun' out of the marketplace?

~~~
ja2ke
His general reasoning (eBay's success was due to it being used as an
entertainment product more than a purely commerce-driven product) was fresh
enough to me, and got me thinking enough, that I didn't mind reading what was
just a quick editorial instead of an academic paper on the subject.

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xsmasher
Nope. Amazon changed from the "internet bookstore" to the "internet everything
store," and they killed eBay by the simple step of requiring a credit card for
sellers, and holding the money for 2 months, if I recall correctly. As a
result, Amazon has never had a fraud problem of eBay's magnitude, and just
feels "safer."

eBay changed from the "selling used stuff" place to the "overrun my wholesale
resellers" place to the "overrun by scammers, don't buy anything over $20"
place. Their reliance on PayPal may have hurt them.

~~~
xsmasher
Oh, and buying used items on Amazon = predictable shipping charge. On eBay,
you have to play "dodge the 99 cent item, $24,99 shipping charge cow patty"
game.

~~~
Maciek416
Strongly agree with your points. eBay has never really tamed the chaos or
perception of risk. In fact, my perception degraded over the years -- I would
say they even doubled their "discomfort" metrics in many people's eyes due to
the difficulties of using PayPal, as well as well-publicized cases of people
losing their money, having their money held, etc.

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krschultz
Ebay killed themselves when they alienated the small sellers, and Amazon
helped matters by offering used sales on a lot of its products. Ebay is now
trying to be Overstock.com-ish rather than its original self. They still make
lots of money but I for one never shop on Ebay for anything I can find
elsewhere.

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larryfreeman
I don't believe that lack of fun killed eBay.

But I would agree that the disappearance of fun was a key symptom of a deeper
problem: eBay's management team focused on maximizing profits rather than
promoting the wellbeing of the eBay community (buyers and sellers).

The equation here is simple: people stop going to eBay when the user
experience is frustrating (otherwise, people stick to their habits) and when
other sites perform the same service better (Amazon, Craigslist, etc).

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gruseom
The author actually gives a better and more general reason at the end: "eBay's
bureaucratic and political MBA culture". No doubt that manifested itself in
making the site less fun, but it also had a lot of other fatal effects, such
as being a horrible place for good hackers.

eBay killed itself.

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buro9
Maybe I'm missing something, they still have the monopoly over the online
auction don't they?

And no, I haven't read the story. It's on techcrunch.

~~~
anigbrowl
Buro9 has a point though. Where else can I get hard-to-find used items?
(article) " it was generally the entertainment and excitement of the chase
that brought a buyer to eBay in the first place." Um, no...it was the prospect
of getting something I want for cheap. Craigslist sometimes provides, but - at
least here in the Bay Area - it's become hopeless for things like computer
equipment, having been overrun by spammers from China, something CL seems
disinclined to do anything about. Mind you, they are owned by eBay...

~~~
russell
Owning 25% of the stock isn't "owned by eBay", although eBay wishes it were.

~~~
anigbrowl
My bad. I mis-remembered as if they had purchased a majority stake.

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TweedHeads
Time is ripe for a new buy-sell marketplace.

No, I don't mean auctions.

No, craigslist is not what I meant.

Kijiji sounds too stupid even if it is good.

The long tail is rattling, can't you hear it?

