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eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

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Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#121

Post by TeMPOraL »

Ekaros wrote: post #98
Nextgrid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't need browser automation though. Multimodal models with vision input can operate a real computer with "real" user inputs over USB, where the computer itself returns a real, plausible browser fingerprint because it is a real browser being operated by something that behaves humanly.

But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on. There might be lot of modelling that could be done simply based on words used in searches and behaviour of opening pages. All trivially track…

> But will they behave like same user in past? I would guess there is lot of difference between how bot accesses page and real user has historically accessed them. Like opening multiple tabs at one time, possibly how long going through next set takes. How they navigate and so on.

That would be making an assumption that a device and/or account maps 1:1 to a specific human. It does not. People share accounts, share devices, and ask others for one-off help ("hey can you finish buying this for me while I deal with $[whatever our kid just did]", this kind of stuff).

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #15
yieldcrv wrote: post #3

not the User Agreement! Impossible to enforce, they can read browser windows and pass captchas

> Impossible to enforce Maybe, but a policy's or law's validity or importance are not contingent on them being enforceable.

No, but when instituting bullshit policies or trying to regulate natural/normal behavior for selfish gain, it helps you if you can enforce the policy, otherwise people will just ignore it.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#123

Post by iLoveOncall »

jsheard wrote: post #44
iLoveOncall wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But eBay hasn't done anything since the 1990's except raise fees. Meanwhile it's now 100% free to sell on eBay for non-professional sellers. https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/fe...

They're playing stupid semantic games in order to claim there's no selling fees while still having selling fees. The fees were ostensibly shifted onto the buyer, except they're bundled into the sale price and cut from what the seller receives, so in effect nothing actually changed. Before: Buyer pays £100, seller receives £100, seller later charged £5 fee, ends up with £95. After: Buyer pays £100, eBay pockets £5 "bu…

Except you can price higher to include that cut, and the buyer protection fee is a lower percentage than the sales one was (between 7% and 2% VS I think 11%).

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#124

Post by cge »

BeetleB wrote: post #32
whyenot wrote: post #12

So scraping bots and “buy for me” bots are bad, but the incredibly annoying sniping bots are OK? That sure feels like a double standard.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

In my experience, most purely online auctions, other than eBay, do work that way. Numerous auction houses, for example, including essentially all the major ones, have their auctions online now: when they are hybrid, that involves online live bidding where an online bid will cause the auctioneer in the room to keep the lot open for more bids; when they are "timed" or "online only", times are extended in some way on bids near the deadline. It does, in fact, work much better. There is still an advantage to bidding very late: there is no disadvantage, and it lowers bids in cases of irrational or imperfect opposing bidders. But it limits that process to something that can be done by hand.

eBay really seems to be the only auctioneer using the snipable process it uses.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#125

Post by RobotToaster »

BeetleB wrote: post #32
whyenot wrote: post #12

So scraping bots and “buy for me” bots are bad, but the incredibly annoying sniping bots are OK? That sure feels like a double standard.

I never understood why eBay set things up to enable sniping. Many years ago, there was an auction site called uBid. They had the sane rule: Bidding is open as long as there have been bids in the past 5 minutes. So the end date could be January 24th, 3pm, but if someone bids at 2:58pm, the deadline is extended to 3:05pm. And it keeps going. You know, like how auctions in the real world work.

That's how whatnot does it as well (what eBay badly copied as eBay live)

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#126

Post by dyauspitr »

young_rutabaga wrote: post #64
jsheard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of sniping bots when eBay has automatic bidding? Counter-sniping is essentially built-in, if your price ceiling is higher then a snipers then you're guaranteed to win even if they bid at the last millisecond.

Snipers essentially convert the ascending-bid proxy auction used in eBay into a Vickrey second-price sealed bid auction, allowing a buyer to not reveal their preferences to other participants. In theory, with rational participants, this shouldn't have any effect on revenue. In practice, buyers do not always understand auction mechanics and delay setting the highest price they're willing to pay until they are outbid.…

If you set the highest price you’re willing to pay it inevitably drives the price higher up then it would otherwise go. There’s something about putting in a bid and immediately seeing that the price has increased that causes the person to bid again.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#128

Post by Dylan16807 »

globular-toast wrote: post #115
cm2187 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auctions are 90% bad deals because you often end up with someone getting over excited and bidding more than the next buy me now price for the same product. But 10% of the time you get lucky, particularly if auctions end at odd time of the day. So I find it's worth throwing some bids, knowing that you should almost always lose. Ebay is best when you are not in a hurry and happy to wait for the right bargain.

I mean, an auction is something where you "win" by agreeing to pay more than anyone else. It's always going to be a bad deal for the buyer. The key with Ebay is to actually sell stuff on there too. If you're just a consumer you'll lose out on auctions in the long run.

> It's always going to be a bad deal for the buyer.

That's not true. Sometimes there's not a lot of demand and you pay much less than average market price.

If something is priced super low then someone might step in to arbitrage, but even with perfect knowledge in a perfectly efficient market, an arbitrager will only be willing to pay the true value minus the cost of relisting, the cost of reshipping, the cost of their time, the cost of tying up their money, and the cost of the risk it won't resell. If you beat that by fifty cents you'll get a great deal on the item.

Re: eBay explicitly bans AI "buy for me" agents in user agreement update

#130

Post by Dylan16807 »

gond wrote: post #94
blitzar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run up the prices in less competitive auctions just for fun occasionally, especially if I think someone is getting too good a deal.

Question: what kind of fun you are referring to here? Since, from the outside, it surely sounds like you get pleasure by inflicting some form of suffering on others. But that hopefully isn’t considered fun, is it?

The price, when between the seller's minimum and the buyer's maximum, is a zero sum game. So while this is definitely screwing with people, the seller gets paid more and the amount of suffering in the world shouldn't really change.
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