Ebay madness

Ok, we we've seen a few examples on this thread of prices going downward. I think that those cases are statistically local phenomena, and that the general trend is going to be upwards. In my opinion (IANAE, so I may be full of hot air), the economics of the situation compels it to be so: (0) The items are generally not being manufactured anymore. That establishes an upward bound on the number of items available in the 'market'. This means that *any* increase in supply is a local phenomenon; one needs only to consider a sufficiently long run to see that supply is either constant or decreasing. (1) Assume that items break beyond all repair every now and then. This means that the upper bounds established in point (0) is itself decreasing, and since the market supply cannot exceed this bounds, it must also be decreasing in the long run. (2) Assume that items break every now and then, but that technology exists such that repair parts can always be made and that people will accept the repaired items as true versions of said items. The supply trend in the long run (constant or decreasing) is then determined by the number of people who are putting the item up for auction, as opposed to keeping it. Though re-auctioners exist, my opinion is that most of the people who buy this stuff on eBay are going to keep it. This means the supply would decrease (in the run, of course). (3) Unless the number of prospective bidders is going down like mad (and I'd say it's increasing, actually), I don't think the demand is going to be decreasing fast enough to have a negative overall effect on prices. So *there*! :-) -- Jeffrey S. Sharp jss(a)subatomix.com