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

nytimes.com

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

#91

Post by unclebucknasty »

mirimir wrote: post #11
TACIXAT wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other point was sites are often trying to address social issues with market solutions. Facebook's mission is social connection but its profit is attention bidding.

Maybe "stated mission"? Do you believe that Facebook's mission is actually social connection?

>Do you believe that Facebook's mission is actually social connection?

Exactly. I laughed out loud at how insanely cynical it is that they suggest that as their mission.

After reading it, you can almost hear Zuckerberg laughing and sneering, "dumb f___s".

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

#92

Post by OJFord »

tim333 wrote: post #86
DrScump wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their UI is so bad, they have to use a phony mockup app in their TV commercials. Watch the commercials where a woman sees a fashion item on the street and then buys it on eBay. Just try doing anything like that on the actual site. Their entire query mechanism has had severe breakages for years . You couldn't possibly construct a search that could isolate a particular shoe or handbag or whatever without traversing tho…

There's good and bad in the UI. Some of the features like being able to search for items in a set price range are very handy and don't seem to be available on other sites.

That's possible on all sorts of sites, including Amazon as far back as I remember.

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

#94

Post by EADGBE »

I've seen it fragment and specialize.

And I'm okay with that.

For instance with musicians - particularly guitarists (only because we tend to be gear enthusiasts) - Reverb.com has become our new Ebay.com. It's even replacing Craigslist for a lot of what we were doing previously (allows local deals, too).

They essentially took all the good things that were working for Ebay and tailored it to musicians. It's a slam dunk.

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

#95

Post by dec0dedab0de »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #70
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…

Interesting that the public perception of trust has degraded so much as a seller. I've been a member since 2003 and buy small bits and bobs on there most weeks and go through phases of occasionally selling things maybe a couple of times a year when I need space / money - most recently an old computer and some guitar pedals. I've only ever had a problem as a seller twice in all those years - one scammer insisting the…

a few years back I did trip some kind of threshold and was automatically upgraded to a business account, which means that my "business" (aka home) address now appears prominently on all my listings. Apparently ebay have no way to downgrade it again and have asked me to just create a new account - throwing away 15 years' worth of positive feedback in the process...

Did they reach out to you? Did they threaten to ban your account for not listing as much as before?

I cant imagine going through the effort to do a clean up of accounts, but not have a way to fix them. Not even a manual one.

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

#96

Post by ballenf »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #33
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…

In the last two years, I've found that about 1 in 4 of my purchases from China will never arrive. Obtaining refunds is an easy process but frustrating. Many of the sellers will have rankings that make them seem trustworthy only to disappear completely. And we can also lay blame on the western hemisphere. Canada and USA postal systems bear the brunt of the costs of "free" delivery. They will give these packages low pr…

I wonder if there's anything unique about your situation or just a lot of bad luck. Are you buying generally higher-end items? What does the tracking reveal in terms of where in the process the item disappeared? In the US or China? Or was it just never tendered for delivery?

I've bought a lot of stuff from China on ali and ebay, but no single item over $30 in value. So far I'm at 100% in terms of delivered items. A lot of crushed packaging, but no damaged items. Maybe 95% in terms of on-time delivery.

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

#97

Post by pssflops »

jen729w wrote: post #60
YouAreGreat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are the ones who get to decide Once upon a time, the late musician Prince decided to change his name. Turns out that no, you don't always "get to decide" and even fans don't follow your every whim: Most ignored his choice and without much "humbleness and deference" started referring to him as TAFKAP—"The Artist Formerly Known As Prince."

Well, that and he changed his name to a glyph which didn’t actually appear on anyone’s system. It was practically impossible to call him by his ‘real’ name even if you had wanted to.

Prince had mailed out floppy disks to news organizations to accommodate that change. [0] The Prince font substituted his symbol for what would otherwise be a capital P. In addition, the font was also made available for download on CompuServe.

[0] http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/04/princes-legendary-floppy-...

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

#98

Post by Shivetya »

I just cannot compare Amazon to Ebay. While I can get similar items on both what I use Ebay for , collectibles, antiques, and hard to find items, is outside the scope of Amazon. I never expected Ebay to be the big retail spot, for many of us it is the world's largest garage sale.

I use Ebay for many replacement parts for items not normally found in stores or worse jacked up on Amazon because they come bound with Prime shipping. Amazon might be top dog from name recognition but places like Wal Mart are trying and unless Amazon gets a grip on knock offs they are in danger of alienating a good number of buyers.

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

#99

Post by oldcynic »

tim333 wrote: post #86
DrScump wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their UI is so bad, they have to use a phony mockup app in their TV commercials. Watch the commercials where a woman sees a fashion item on the street and then buys it on eBay. Just try doing anything like that on the actual site. Their entire query mechanism has had severe breakages for years . You couldn't possibly construct a search that could isolate a particular shoe or handbag or whatever without traversing tho…

There's good and bad in the UI. Some of the features like being able to search for items in a set price range are very handy and don't seem to be available on other sites.

Most of their UI changes have been user hostile or added dark patterns. For instance where once you got local items and sellers by default, now it defaults to international and you have to change a setting to exclude overseas sellers. Almost everyone will want to shop nationally first. It's the same arrogant "knowing better" seen in Facebook's show recent posts constantly resetting.

Picking out one feature that they haven't ruined is poor consolation. As the other commenter notes Amazon has let you break down into price tiers for years. Most sites I shop at can do this.

eBay search results are better than Amazon however - but that is because Amazon's has become so awful.

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

#100

Post by pravda »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #33
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…

In the last two years, I've found that about 1 in 4 of my purchases from China will never arrive. Obtaining refunds is an easy process but frustrating. Many of the sellers will have rankings that make them seem trustworthy only to disappear completely. And we can also lay blame on the western hemisphere. Canada and USA postal systems bear the brunt of the costs of "free" delivery. They will give these packages low pr…

>about 1 in 4 of my purchases from China will never arrive.

What country you in? For me (in USA), the non-arrival rate is well under 1%.

>Canada and USA postal systems bear the brunt of the costs of "free" delivery.

That makes no sense. You have either been infected by propaganda, or are a propagandist yourself.

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