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Cringely on Ebay
Bob Cringely has this interesting commentary on e-bay and its effect on the economy.
I think everyone goes through this period of e-bay discovery. At first it's all tacky and hard to use and intimidating. Then you find a few things, set up a paypal account, and suddenly you've got 30 bids going at once every day, some on sh*t you don't really even want. And then you come to your senses, use e-bay as a tool, and go outside once in awhile.
We're still waiting on my mom to reach step 3. She's one of those e-bay vultures who swoop in at the last second to grab things up. She's even got these fancy computer widgets that do it automatically now!
I think the progression to step 3 occurs around the same time as your first bad experience e-baying.
Posted by: Jim on July 29, 2002 12:16 PMActually, I haven't had any really bad experiences on e-bay. Maybe it's because I never really e-bay'ed that much. I think I just had one time years ago when a guy never sent me $5.00 worth of comics. He may have forgot, and by the time I remembered I couldn't find the auction link. $5 wasn't really worth the trouble (although other members of my family will vehemently disagree).
But there definitely are some wacks out there.
Posted by: scott on July 29, 2002 12:23 PMThe way I bid is called "sniping". I don't use the fancy widget to help me bid. It is a lot more fun sniping manually especially with a 56K dial up modem. Then I get to perform the "happynekkidsniperdance" when I win with a bid under 10 seconds before the end of the auction. LOL
The only bad experience I have had on eBay was two years ago with a seller who was kicked off within a week.
Posted by: Pat on July 30, 2002 02:36 PM