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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

#291

Post by whatevermom4 »

pjc50 wrote: post #237
ramses0 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Power Sellers" - there was a statement that your business (for marketplace-type-business) needed to have an avenue to support "mega" suppliers for eventual symbiotic success. There was a business a while back that was like "pay $50-100 to carpool from SF to LA" and the post-mortem was: "your earning potential was limited, no power-seller support" b/c eventually just turn into a bus-driver/bus company. (Uber is an in…

Thinking a bit more, it would be quite handy to have a "power seller" AI for all my random junk. Spread it out on a table, pan a camera over it, then leave it to the computers until someone's willing to pay an amount for one of those objects that's worth the work of packing and shipping it.

This is a really cool idea. A sort of table where you just leave the stuff that you want to sell. There could be a dedicated tablet / computer where to interact with the AI (adjust prices, receive orders) and a little printer to print the shipping labels.

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

#292

Post by pranavj »

Banning AI agents is the new "banning mobile browsers." Companies tried that too in the early smartphone era - remember when sites blocked mobile user agents to force desktop views?

The businesses that win will be the ones that build AI-agent-friendly interfaces, not the ones that try to ban them. eBay is protecting their ad revenue and impulse-buy funnel in the short term, but they're ceding the future to whoever figures out how to make agent-compatible commerce work.

Every product and platform will eventually have an "agent API" alongside their human UI. The only question is who builds it first.

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

#293

Post by pranavj »

MarginalGainz wrote: post #180

This ban isn't about 'fairness' or bot protection; it's about protecting the Impression Funnel. Marketplaces like eBay are designed to monetize 'Wandering Attention'—sponsored listings, 'customers also bought', and sidebar ads. An AI Agent represents 'Laser Focused Attention'. It executes a transaction with zero wandering. It effectively turns the marketplace into a commoditized backend database / dumb pipe. From a G…

Great analysis of the real motivation here. But this feels like the record labels trying to ban MP3 players. You can protect the impression funnel today, but the trajectory is clear - consumers will increasingly delegate purchasing decisions to agents, and the platforms that adapt will capture that flow.

The marketplace that builds "agent-friendly" commerce (verified listings, structured data, transparent pricing, API access) becomes the default backend for AI shopping. The one that bans agents becomes a legacy system humans have to manually navigate when the agent can't help.

eBay's current business model may be a "nightmare customer" for AI agents, but that's a problem with the business model, not with the agents.

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

#294

Post by pranavj »

haritha-j wrote: post #255
MarginalGainz wrote: post #180

This ban isn't about 'fairness' or bot protection; it's about protecting the Impression Funnel. Marketplaces like eBay are designed to monetize 'Wandering Attention'—sponsored listings, 'customers also bought', and sidebar ads. An AI Agent represents 'Laser Focused Attention'. It executes a transaction with zero wandering. It effectively turns the marketplace into a commoditized backend database / dumb pipe. From a G…

Or probably even wrose, it actually shifts the attention and the wandering. That phase will happen inside the LLM, where the LLM decides which link to suggest, i.e. whoever pays the LLM the most. And worse yet, that will apply not just for products, but for platforms, so if amazon pays chatgpt more than ebay does, there goes your sale.

This assumes the LLM ecosystem stays centralized. Open source models running locally or on user-controlled infrastructure flip this - the agent works for you, not for whoever pays the model provider.

The race is already happening: open weights models are getting good enough that "your personal shopping agent" doesn't need to phone home to a company with ad incentives. The future probably looks more like ad blockers than ad platforms - agents that aggressively optimize for user preferences, not platform revenue.

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

#295

Post by [deleted] »

pranavj wrote: post #292

Banning AI agents is the new "banning mobile browsers." Companies tried that too in the early smartphone era - remember when sites blocked mobile user agents to force desktop views? The businesses that win will be the ones that build AI-agent-friendly interfaces, not the ones that try to ban them. eBay is protecting their ad revenue and impulse-buy funnel in the short term, but they're ceding the future to whoever fi…

[deleted]

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

#296

Post by giraffe_lady »

pranavj wrote: post #292

Banning AI agents is the new "banning mobile browsers." Companies tried that too in the early smartphone era - remember when sites blocked mobile user agents to force desktop views? The businesses that win will be the ones that build AI-agent-friendly interfaces, not the ones that try to ban them. eBay is protecting their ad revenue and impulse-buy funnel in the short term, but they're ceding the future to whoever fi…

If they don't currently see a way to make agent commerce work, the smart move is to stay alive long enough for someone else to figure it out then buy them or simply copy it. And if it never works out this will have been far cheaper in the medium run.

I do not endorse this approach but it is well established in the tech industry.

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

#297

Post by johnsmith1840 »

pranavj wrote: post #292

Banning AI agents is the new "banning mobile browsers." Companies tried that too in the early smartphone era - remember when sites blocked mobile user agents to force desktop views? The businesses that win will be the ones that build AI-agent-friendly interfaces, not the ones that try to ban them. eBay is protecting their ad revenue and impulse-buy funnel in the short term, but they're ceding the future to whoever fi…

I think more likely we will unlock browser agents and no company will develop an agent api. They will have a user facing website used by agents or humans the same way.

This also completely sidesteps any actions Ebay decides. It will have all credentials for them and mfa. To ebay this will look identical to the user with no real way to stop it.

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

#298

Post by the_gastropod »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #264
quietsegfault wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only sell stuff on EBay as-is, no returns. I'm not sure if this protects me from their money back guarantee, but it gives me a little peace of mind until I too get bitten.

IANAL: but if a seller misrepresents what they’re selling then “As is” doesn’t help them. If I sell you a Ferrari “as is” but I send you a kit car that looks like a Ferrari, “as is” ain’t gonna help.

Yep. Therein lies the rub. eBay inserts themselves as the middle-man here. But they take 0 responsibility for assessing disputes if a buyer claims an item was not as described. They just arbitrarily refund buyers, and automatically pay for the shipping fees from the sellers' connected bank accounts. To make matters worse, as a seller, as far as I know, you can't limit how much the buyer can spend on shipping. So, e.g., if someone on the other side of the planet buys something from you, pays for shipping, then says "item not as described", you're going to be on the hook for a large sum. I guess this happens rarely enough for most big sellers that it's worth continuing to use ebay. But for average schmo use-cases (like selling old household goods), it's a ridiculous risk.

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

#299

Post by ianferrel »

pranavj wrote: post #293
MarginalGainz wrote: post #180

This ban isn't about 'fairness' or bot protection; it's about protecting the Impression Funnel. Marketplaces like eBay are designed to monetize 'Wandering Attention'—sponsored listings, 'customers also bought', and sidebar ads. An AI Agent represents 'Laser Focused Attention'. It executes a transaction with zero wandering. It effectively turns the marketplace into a commoditized backend database / dumb pipe. From a G…

Great analysis of the real motivation here. But this feels like the record labels trying to ban MP3 players. You can protect the impression funnel today, but the trajectory is clear - consumers will increasingly delegate purchasing decisions to agents, and the platforms that adapt will capture that flow. The marketplace that builds "agent-friendly" commerce (verified listings, structured data, transparent pricing, AP…

>The marketplace that builds "agent-friendly" commerce (verified listings, structured data, transparent pricing, API access) becomes the default backend for AI shopping.

I'd like to believe this, but claims like this have been made since the early days of internet commerce. After all, it's not hard to specify structured data about items and run queries against it. But it largely has not materialized outside of a few special suppliers.

You can't actually search Amazon or eBay or Wayfair for things with specified dimensions or characteristics. You can, however, find lots of listings for things like "Gzsbaby 6 Piece Jumbo Dinosaur Toys for Kids 3-5 and Toddlers, Large Soft Dinosaur Toys for Lovers - Perfect Party Favors, Birthday Gifts "

Perhaps this time is different? But why is it different? What economic incentives will lead to good structured data and transparent pricing, rather than whatever the AI equivalent of glurge/slop listings is?

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

#300

Post by johanyc »

ghjv wrote: post #258
MarginalGainz wrote: post #180

This ban isn't about 'fairness' or bot protection; it's about protecting the Impression Funnel. Marketplaces like eBay are designed to monetize 'Wandering Attention'—sponsored listings, 'customers also bought', and sidebar ads. An AI Agent represents 'Laser Focused Attention'. It executes a transaction with zero wandering. It effectively turns the marketplace into a commoditized backend database / dumb pipe. From a G…

—It's not X, it's Y?

Stop the ai witch hunt madness
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