15 May
2005
15 May
'05
3:51 p.m.
From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com>
> Unfortunately, Ebay's "theory" goes
against human nature. What you think
is
> your maximum bid, when someone else outbids that
your brain says "well,
if I
> could get it for just a little more, I guess
I'd be willing to pay
that".
Right. This is exactly what I used to say ad nauseum. It is the very
reason sniping is still around. It helps eBay in that it uses human
psychology in their favor (oh, and by the way, the side effect is that it
results in INFLATED PRICES).
I see this as replacing an orderly competition to determine who is willing
to pay the most with a last second scramble in which some number of bidders
get cut off by the auction deadline. So I don't see how it drive prices up.
Seems like whoever got cut off lost their chance to drive the price up.
Since I enter snipes days ahead of time (and assume most others do too), I
think the emotionalism that drives the prices up is largely defeated. If
the minority who are hand-entering their last-second bids had enough time to
bid effectively, *that* would drive prices up.
(I don't want any arguments. It's a fact. Go
do something useful instead
of replying to this message ;)
Like *that* was going to happen :-)!
Vince