E-bay complaints: was Re: "Response" from seller with the"Apple-1"

There are certainly some big problems with eBay's system. But overall, I agree with the prior posting (I forget whose) noting that no place else can we find so much stuff without leaving our desks. That is one heck of a good deal. There are several hundred to maybe a thousand of us here on classiccmp. There could easily be twice or ten times as many collectors who have no idea classiccmp, vcf, etc. exist. I'd bet there are also thousands of people who just desire one particular item for some particular reason (technical, sentiment, etc.), and they just go on eBay, get that item, and then walk away. Those people aren't any less human - or less collector - than the rest of us. Now, eventually, those people will Google for some help on their new vintage machine. When they do, they'll promptly find our resources, like classiccmp, vcf, old-computers.com, and countless machine-specific sites. So while it's absolutely true that some big parts of eBay do suck, I'd argue that some parts of ALL large systems suck, but that we just happen to be a group affected by these parts rather acutely. And I'd argue that eBay probably brings just as many new collectors into our hobby and to our preferred resources, than it could turn away.