20 Mar
1999
20 Mar
'99
12:01 p.m.
On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Sam objects to "idiots" bidding against
presumably rational people and
allowing the prices to escalate (he believes) due to the auction atmosphere
presented by eBay. I don't happen to agree with him. The people who sell
their good at auction wish for a ridiculously hign price. They don't often
Of course they wish for a ridiculously high price. And my argument, which
you did not address, is that ebay's auction mechanism encourages
such ridiculously high prices.
It's true, that eBay seeks to benefit by this
overall-inane-if-not-insane
auction environment, simply because their fee is tied to the final bid
offered. Sam objects to this, while I object to the high precentage of
And thus it is in ebay's best interest to put mechanisms in place which
encourage over-bidding for an item. In the end they will collect the
most revenues from the auction!
A few days ago, I was visiting Best Buy, which is a
common source of
computer hardware at reasonable prices. I declined to pay $180 for a 10GB
hard disk because I though the price was a mite high. That was not the only
reason, but it was a factor. Twenty years ago, I paid $1500 for a 5MB
Winchester drive. Lots of other people thought the price was a mite high,
but I paid the price, believing that I needed the drive more than I needed
the $1500. Does that make me an idiot? Does that make all the people who
didn't buy the things twenty years ago fools? I think not.
Well, who really NEEDS an Altair 8800?
All this is an allusion to the fact that it's
called a "free" market. I
guess that means that there's no restriction against fools and idiots.
Its a free market sure, but the prices that come out of ebay auctions are
by no measure "fair market value".
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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