Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay • Hacker News Board

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#41

Post by TACIXAT » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

antonvs wrote: post #23

zaroth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eclectic and severe right-wing politics? Awfully colorful way to describe him in an article which isn’t an editorial. Would love to see the NYT describing a left winger as eclectic and severe. Even masked antifa don’t get that treatment. It’s frustrating to have to mentally guard against this political mudslinging. The article is worse for it, and IMO it’s just coddling their readership and narrowing their audience.

Do you think either characterization - eclectic, severe - is actually incorrect?

There is a much more neutral way to write it.

>Thiel who is known for funding a lawsuit against Gawker and his conservative politics.

Still, I think those, while visible, are rather minor notes compared to starting a billion dollar defense contractor.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#42

Post by analog31 » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 6:55 AM UTC

boxcardavin wrote: post #26

I tried to Buy It Now an item off Ebay just now and Ebay responded, "Sorry, this seller is on vacation, so this item is unavailable." Sinking ship.

I had the same experience, but just waited for my item, and it arrived. It was an obscure old bike part, quite rare and just what I needed, so I decided it was worth the wait.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#43

Post by Jaruzel » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 6:55 AM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #35

Jaruzel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is anecdotal, because it's only my experience from being a long time eBay user (buying and selling). 1 Buying on ebay is nice and safe because eBay protects the buyer and will almost always rule in the buyers favour. 2. Selling on eBay is fraught with problems: The Seller is not protected from scams at all. It's easy for a buyer to buy something, and they can flag to eBay that their account was compromised. Beca…

Because eBay own PayPal Not anymore.

Good point, forgot about that. tbh, nothing changed after the spin off. eBay still seem to have direct control over how your paypal account gets/loses funds.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#44

Post by julian_t » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 6:56 AM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #29

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

This is anecdotal, because it's only my experience from being a long time eBay user (buying and selling). 1 Buying on ebay is nice and safe because eBay protects the buyer and will almost always rule in the buyers favour. 2. Selling on eBay is fraught with problems: The Seller is not protected from scams at all. It's easy for a buyer to buy something, and they can flag to eBay that their account was compromised. Beca…

> eBay protects the buyer and will almost always rule in the buyers favour.

Exactly so. I've done a bit of buying and selling acoustic guitars, and would now only do "buyer collects".

I do this because several acquaintances have been scammed, mostly with the buyer claiming that the guitar wasn't in the case when it arrived. In each case, eBay has sided with the buyer.

So I've now given up eBay and found a local auction house that does regular musical instrument auctions... much less chance of being scammed there!

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#45

Post by DrScump » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:00 AM UTC

Jaruzel wrote: post #43

DrScump wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because eBay own PayPal Not anymore.

Good point, forgot about that. tbh, nothing changed after the spin off. eBay still seem to have direct control over how your paypal account gets/loses funds.

Adyen will be replacing PayPal as eBay's official payments affiliate.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#46

Post by setquk » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

It’s not that bad. I sell a lot of stuff and have had no problems with scammers other than a couple of people doing a buy it now and then wanting stuff shipped to Lagos etc and payment via money order. You just cancel the sale and relist then.

The real risks are couriers in my experience.

eBay success:

1. Avoid GSP

2. Sell only inside your region

3. Mark and photograph everything sold and keep the serial numbers.

4. If there’s any risk of something packing up, sell it spares or repair. Doesn’t affect the final value.

5. If someone pulls one just cancel the sale and move on.

6. If someone picks up from you take a signature.

7. If you do a buy it now, tick the immediate payment box.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#47

Post by waytogo » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:09 AM UTC

OT: What eBay is really good at:

If you want to buy a notebook with a US keyboard (which some devs prefer) and when it's hard to get them in your home country.

eBay.com offers a Global Shipping Program where the US seller just send their stuff to this shipping program and eBay takes care of everything else. Even customs will be paid by eBay and the buyer just pays once and benefits from fast processing. It's a buttersmooth way of international shipping.

I got my last notebook within just one week and it was still cheaper than the local version in my home country. I know that some notebooks offer US keyboards in any country (ThinkPads and Macbooks) but then you usually wait also min 1-2 weeks because they are custom builds or they come directly from China.

Don't know of any other entity than eBay offering this.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#48

Post by benbristow » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:12 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #27

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

Agree with all of your points plus the UI is massively inconsistent, not just in term of format, but different pages will give you different message count or items sold count, or one page will tell you you received a message and the message page will show nothing, it looks like something quickly hacked together in php in the old days. And I am not even talking about consistency between browser and iOS UI in term of i…

Doesn't help that half of the user panel hasn't been updated since the 90's/early 2000's. Some pages look relatively modern then some just look awful.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#49

Post by jjeaff » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:13 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

I use eBay frequently as a seller and buyer. If I don't need it fast, and I want it cheaper, I'll use eBay.

As a seller, I have very rarely had issues with buyers. I always sell via buy it now and I usually am able to get a price comparable to what I would have gotten on Amazon. I find that Amazon is not ideal for one off, used items. eBay tends to be better.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#50

Post by adrianratnapala » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

thomasfedb wrote: post #12

jen729w wrote: post #7

Why do the style guides of these large organisations often insist on the ludicrous capitalisation of "EBay" when it appears at the start of a sentence?

As a writer I will jump through linguistic hoops to move uncapitalised proper names away from the start of a sentence - for example, a medical device called "i-gel" which I wrote a paper on. Starting a sentence without a capital is just too jarring in formal writing I find.

Yep. For hundreds of years English has had a rule that proper nouns are capitalised; it is pretentious to imagine that "myThingy is soooo cool that you can't even use the rules of English on it."

Now in some fields, like computer documentation, there's practical reason to change. It would be confusing to capitalise command-names if they are lower-case in their (case sensitive) native language. But newspapers aren't bound by that consideration, and it doesn't really apply to company names anyway.