I agree there is a network effect to get critical mass, and certainly a winner-take all game in auctions.
But eBay lost its essence a long time ago as they absorbed too many MBAs and let them rather than the technologists run the show. The description in the OP of the process eBay went through was enough to know the reinvention would be a failure. It was.
"I told them about Steve’s speech to the Rhapsody team, and asked: 'Does eBay want BMW market share, or Toyota market share?' At the time, eBay was more than 20% of all e-commerce, and all plans oriented towards growing that market share."
Where does MBA's versus engineers ever come up? Jobs' speech is about creating a competitive advantage by building a premium product and focusing on a specific user - something eBay doesn't have the freedom to do.
It doesn't - but the comparison is about quality of the product versus market share and money. The MBAs put the 2nd first, the engineers the first.
During the 2000s eBay increasingly focussed their business on the largest sellers, helping push the site from a many to many business to a more traditional fixed price eCommerce business.
Along the way they forgot about the awesomeness of their tiny auction customers who liked the fun of both placing auctions and buying goods, and as a result the site 'lost it' for many. The right customer for eBay was not the big merchants but the masses.
