reflections on ebay

From: Stu <s.d.birchall_at_pgr.salford.ac.uk>
Date: Thu May 11 03:40:11 2000

I can't agree that Ebay is unfair, assuming everyone is familiar with the
rules. The auction system itself is prone to manipulation however, and I
dislike the practice of sniping, as a flurry of bids in the last minute of
an auction reduces it to little more than a lottery based on "who can click
on the button in the last possible instant".
Ebay is also not responsible for the "Industrialisation of nostalgia", it is
merely a manifestation of it. We have more money or "stored work units" as
one poster put it, but disproportionately less leisure time with which to
expend it. Nostalgia is compelling and services like e-bay can re-acquaint
ourselves with lost youth in a satisfyingly compressed timeframe with the
minimum amount of effort. Not being involved in the "hunt" for that
treasured artifact should be differentiated from the intellectual exercise
of learning about it and understanding its significance; people can enjoy
collections without physically assembling them through luck and physcial
effort - though these things are satisfying in themselves (as we all know).
What everyone can agree on is the limited value of collecting without
intellectual exercise, when collecting becomes "material acquisition". This
is unsatisfying for the collector and the artifacts, and is a reflection of
the materialistic society in which we live and have always lived. Those who
do not really understand computer collecting would argue that emulation
renders collecting of old machines unecessary - after all, what is it you
are collecting? The physical machine, or the patterns of its organisation,
architecture and execution?
Comments please..
Received on Thu May 11 2000 - 03:40:11 BST