eBay sniping

From: Mike <ipscone_at_msdsite.com>
Date: Mon Apr 28 11:33:00 2003

> On Sunday, April 27, 2003, steve wrote:
>> Ebay always hides the the current highest bid,
> It doesn't matter how close to
> zero it is, because any sufficiently fast machine could do it. Sealed
> bid auctions do not have this duration. A person or machine would
> require time travel in order to react to a bid. Not even an infinitely
> fast machine could do it.
>
> --
> Jeffrey Sharp

Not true! I can bid at 1 to 2 seconds left and no proxy bidding software
is going to have time to see my bid posted, download the new web page,
process the data, calculate a new bid and upload the new data, all withing
1 second.

But aside from that, NO software works that way. They work by simply
placing their bid, one time, just at the end. None look for a bid and
make a change. And no person can react in that amount of time. Upload
and download times are far slower than the fastest machine. Machine speed
is irrelevant.

I would bet monet that no person ever sees a bid placed with 2 or 3
seconds left that has time to react and change their bid.
Received on Mon Apr 28 2003 - 11:33:00 BST