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eBay Looking for Allies Against Google
Vitaly Friedman writes "A report in the Wall Street Journal today talks about how eBay is looking for partners to defend against the growing threat of Google. Specifically, Google Base and the payment system in the works in Mountain View are seen as possible dangers to eBay's auctions and PayPal payment operations, says the report. Google Talk just throws some salt in the wounds by looking for a toehold in Skype's turf."
Huh?
So, you're saying that Steve Jobs should have stated that Google, a non-existant company, was the enemy?
"Salt in the wounds". Whose wounds? Competition is a good thing for most of us.
Now we finally know what the "e" stands for in eBay. Yep you guessed it, "Evil". If you're not on Google's side you must be wrong.
I'm sick of essentially being blackmailed by people I buy stuff off who refuse to give me feedback until I've given them feedback, even though I've just paid them £100 for an item they are yet to post.
And fucking the Katrina victims out of Something Awful's donations was the straw that broke the donkey's back.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
So, you're saying that Steve Jobs should have stated that Google, a non-existant company, was the enemy?
;)
Yes, if he truly was a visionary
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Is that eBay will be forced to stop screwing their customers http://www.paypalsucks.com/ and improve their service.
Oh the joys of competition.
So, eBay is afraid of Google.
I've heard many complaints so far about both eBay and PayPal - could it be that they feel Google's service will be beta^Hter?
So see if I care... they can get all the partners they want, but if Google rolls out a superior service, they can either adapt or go sulk in the corner.
Ignore this signature. By order.
a. How about bringing back a real archive of auction results. Not the crummy 2 week limit in place now.
b. Penalize bulk category flooders. Some categories are filled with sellers listing the same item over and over again. They should be forced to use the bulk option.
c. 0 rated sellers should not be allowed to list without verified bank account/address info.
d. Allow sellers to set feedback threshold restrictions on buyers.
e. Finally, ebay should stop spamming its own users with "deals" and credit card offers.
I would too, but not just for the usual reasons that are cited against PayPal. I don't use paypal for a lot of reasons, and one of them is that it is seen as unprofessional. (For example, a professional organization I belong to needs a way to take cc payments over the web, but is too small for a merchant acct. And PayPal makes you look like a doofus, like an aol email addy.) Because Google is so much "cooler" and trendier, it would be easier to get google payment adopted instead of PayPal. I have no idea why PayPal seems so hokey... Is it the name?
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Maybe if Paypal didn't confiscate its customers' money at will, they wouldn't have this problem.
Can I be against both?
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I actually was willing to learn to type "http://www.google.com" instead of "http://www.altavista.com" to search on Google; even from the outset, no other search engine came close to their level of quality (read: good search results).
Nowadays, Wal-Mart routinely grinds competition unto the dust. Woe betide the small businessman whose future neighbor is a Wal-Mart Supercenter. They're big, monopolistic, anti-competitive, predatory . . . all of the wonderfully evil traits which characterize success in our free enterpise system. This makes them fairly well hated, the price of success.
Nowadays, Google is percieved as the ultimate digital destructor - crushing internet opposition wherever it rises, brutally redefining markets and networking in that fashion most likely to lead to their own growth and the demise of competing technologies.
Either you love free enterprise or you hate it - either way, I wouldn't trust it!
Apart from the usual barrage of reasons to not like paypal, they are hokey in exactly the same way as an AOL email. Anyone can get one, no technical or professional qualifications needed. It's impossible to seem in any way ahead of your competition with a system that a teenager can sign up for in ten minutes.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I would jump on a paypal alternative. I juat want to use my online payment service to buy adult goods along with the non adult goods. I hate that Paypal makes a distinction, and doesn't allow that. The alternatives for payment for adult goods just aren't widespread enough to use, in my opinion.
Nothing hides evidence like a stew. -Gus Pratt
can't they just wait until steve ballmer f***ing kills google
Between the cleaner UI of a bookmarking system, the tagging, and purposefully active userbase I'm hoping fyndr can put a, yeah yeah, web2.0 face on the old web1.0 beast.
Here in Silicon Valley, the most often spoken line is now "We would fund your company, it's brilliant, but Google would just copy it, so no."
Google doesnt even have to do anything anymore... the fear of Google is killing the whole tech industry. They are the online version of Walmart, crushing every business within their grasp, and forcing everyone to play by their rules.
Just ask any online business not on page 1 of a search result, if you can find one that's still in business that is.
Anything Google even might possibly copy, isn't happening at all, just like Microsoft used to do - and did very well. Google will crush everyone just as effectively in the end.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Some of us enjoy having things forced down our throats. :)
Last time I checked, Linux is still and underdog.
Underdog, fiscally maybe, but money was never the driving factor for OSS. In terms of a usable, alternative, stable, easy to use OS, Linux is definately no longer an underdog. (IMHO).
echo hell yes > /tmp/temp_a.txt; /tmp/temp_a.txt; /tmp/temp_a.txt;
echo hell no >>
grep -v no
Don't save Windows XP! http://www.petitiononline.com/jjw1xp/petition.html
Anyone can get one, no technical or professional qualifications needed.
There are plenty of things out there that anyone can get, but don't seem as hokey as PayPal. gmail accounts, myspace accounts (in the right context), etc.. It has more to do with the kind of people that are involved in using the service. The vast majority of individuals using AOL are not regarded by the rest of us as very bright. They are either paying way too much for dial-up, or adding AOL costs to their broadband.
I think PayPal has suffered from the same problem. Outside of eBay use, the only sites that have used it have been completely unprofessional in appearance. This gives us all a collective unprofessional opinion of PayPal. I actually think that PayPal's overall reputation has improved over the last several years and you see more and more legitimate sites using them. I'm not a particular fan of PayPal (even though my buddy Shuanqun works there), but they do fill a need. Competition will be good, reduce costs of both online payments and merchant accounts and hopelly legitimatize the service.
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In fact, I dare you to find a noun you can search for on google without coming up with an eBay add. As near as I can tell, eBay is Google's single largest advertiser. If they want to hurt google, they should start by cutting off some funding.
Paypal has been an extremely customer hostile company for many years. The only reason a lot of people use them is there's no viable alternative. If Google come up with something good, nothing can save paypal from its own history.
Why, oh why can't the future be like Brave New World instead? Seriously, I find nothing at all wrong with happy drugs, mindless orgies on a weekly basis and 50-60 years of youth.
not a liability. Google in the past has been willing to buy companies with a quality product. Bill this to investors as how they can get their money back in a few years.
When they say, "Google would copy it," you say, "as soon as there's the slightest rumor of that, we offer to sell to them. If the product area stays below google's radar, we make money. If it doesn't, then we make our product good enough that they'd be better off buying us." An acquisition is generally a much more likely exit strategy than an IPO anyways.
Furthermore, every good idea doesn't have to be a new company. If you want to make something, and you think google is in a better position to do it, go pitch it to google and get hired. There is as much opportunity for entrepreneurial skill within companies as there is in starting new ones.
--
Plutonium
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"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
eBay currently gets a huge percentage of it's traffic through paid advertising with Google.
Now, because Google might infringe upon it's payment system and dabble a bit in online auctions, eBay will move it's advertising focus to someone like Yahoo or MSN that wouldn't send them anywhere near the referrals they get from Google?
Anyone else besides me see that concept being a bit like tossing the baby out with the bathwater?
Don't get me wrong, I'm quite willing to admit that I am hopelessly eBay addicted. I can also say that the chances of Google coming up with an auction site that would lure me away from eBay are somewhere between slim and none.
As for PayPal, while I have personally never had any problems, there are enough horror stories around to make any rational person realize that they COULD happen to anyone. Who remembers, BTW, that eBay bought PayPal because, quite frankly, PayPal was kicking eBay's original online payment system's butt, to put it mildly. If Google can do a better job with their online payment system, then by all means, let the consumer benefit, and let the chips fall where they may.
Like others have mentioned, eBay's (and PayPal's) achilles heel is their abominable customer service, on those occasions when a user needs some assistance. Their current policy is patterned, no doubt, like the model of some Hollywood version of the evil mega-insurance company. Just slam the door in the complaintant's face, and give them the double & triple dodge & shuffle untill they just give up in disgust and go away.
Although I have been personally extremely fortunate to have not needed assistance from eBay or PayPal on more than a few occasions, I can attest to the fact that getting anything accomplished is more than frustrating, it's damn near impossible. (HINT: BE PERSISTANT, REFUSE to go away, and seach the net for a way to contact a real, honest-to-goodness, live, human-type Supervisor. They can and will help you, *IF* you can just figure out how in the world to contact one in the first place.)
Here's a novel suggestion to eBay:
Instead of shifting your advertising budget to a venue that will give you LESS business instead of more, divert some ad dollars into some semblance of REAL Customer Service instead. Beat your opposition in the good old fashioned capitalist way. Build a better mousetrap, etc., etc.
Of course, you could also just opt for the new capitalism model, buy out your competition instead of going head to head against them in a free marketplace. Simply buyout Google like you did PayPal, and then you'd be the big, bad Internet bully everyone likes to think Google will someday become, instead.
DaveJ45
Differences between how you act when some one is watching, and how you act when no one is watching, define who you are
Ebay was good..for about the first year after it arrived. Its just a life support system for sketchy wholesalers and prima-donna powersellers.
The following is an exchange I had with ebay:
Background: We all know power-sellers jack their shipping to cover the cost of them offering stuff at 1 penny. However if you read Ebays ToS this violates it.
I found a seller selling a USB dongle, domestic shipping via USPS (standard air mail, no insurance, etc). After an exchange with ebay, I was told that "Ebay trusts their sellers to set appropriate ship amounts".
Reading their ToS further you discover that its also a violation to list the handling price as a percentage of the final fee. I found several listings by an individual doing just that. I was given the same form letter.
Ebay is junk. They do nothing but protect their power-sellers. Many power-sellers hold feedback hostage. When you feedback like:
Joeblow - item recieved broken, did not respond to e-mails, attempted to call, would not speak with me, etc
Powerseller1111 - BAD EBAYER STAY AWAY!!!
you know exactly what happened. If ebay actually cared about the integrity of its system it would institute a double blind feedback system where each user inputs their feedback then its applied when both have inputed and saved it.
It was another nice idea that got ruined by the internet.