ePay

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_ncal.verio.com>
Date: Tue Oct 27 02:09:43 1998

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, D. Peschel wrote:

> I have not been paying attention, so I could be wrong. But it seems to me
> that this argument is a bit worthless because if you succeed in moving all
> the old computer auctions over to Haggle, and Haggle becomes popular, then
> the same old dirty dealings will happen on Haggle too, just like eBay.

Except for the fact that the owner of Haggle is also an avid computer
collector, and is sympathetic to this sort of thing (he's also, irony of
all ironies, a user of eBay). So I'm sure he would be open to refining
his auction to prevent this from happening.

> I guess you're hoping that eBay will remain popular for ordinary auctions
> and Haggle will become popular for computer auctions... this might work but
> it might actually make things worse, if the compu-vultures start to pay
> special attention to Haggle. If you're banking on some innate difference
> between eBay and Haggle... well, yes, that might work.

One of my points (which I forget to mention) was that it will bring all
the computers into one listing so you don't have to go searching for them
in a bunch of different categories amidst other uninteresting crap. The
other point is that we can get Haggle to alter its auction policy (I've
discussed this at length with the owner). eBay could give a rat's ass
what you think. They're just happily collecting listing fees.

> Boy, I'm really pessimistic (especially considering I've never actually
> used eBay or Haggle).

Good. You should keep it that way.

Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.

                  Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
                   See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
                        [Last web site update: 09/21/98]
Received on Tue Oct 27 1998 - 02:09:43 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:31:29 BST