Slashdot Mirror
On eBay Addiction
El Volio writes "Believe it or not, Worth magazine has a very funny, subtly insightful article on the phenomenon of eBay addiction... " I've witnessed said addiction in people. Its more than just a little disturbing. Its fairly similiar to the Day Trading addiction I've witnessed in roommates too (the worst part is they don't trade, they just reload all day long).
What makes someone addicted?
Well, let's look at why we become addicted; I feel it's becouse our minds, needing focus, find the easiest place to put it. Other examples are TV, alcohol, etc.
It's not easy to focus on kids, other people (unless it's sappy social trivialities), or (god forbid!) using a computer for productive behaviour. We all know the experience of sitting down at the PC intending to make that cool new driver and ending up spending hours surfing. I've considered deleting my web browser.
So how do you break this habit? It's an issue of empowerment. When you whittle away your time, you feel controlled by your habit, disempowered. To break the habit you need to adress your personal needs; you need to concentrate on what empowers you and do it. If you feel yourself being distracted the resolution is simple: ask yourself if this distraction is empowering or not and make the right decision.
-ted
Shame, Rob. Shame on you for taking advantage of people with mental disorders!
Yeah the comments are pretty sick, I was following the mainstream for the first 10 deals or so, (mostly were start with "two thumbs up..." just because I want to justify the orgiastic praises the buyers/sellers gave me.) Then I realized how stupid it is. It doesn't matter as far as I gave him +1, so now my comments are like this "Once Upon a Time in American, the soundtrack is the best."
CY
Very similar, also involves hitting Reload quite a bit.... Seems confined to the lower life forms though.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Believe it or not, there are people selling their ICQ UIN#/pw on eBay, starting at $50 for numbers in the 1million range. I talked to one of them, who styles himself as a broker of numbers, asking him what my # (103792) would be worth, he said he'd pay me $450 for it, and could probably auction it for $750. The things people would bid on...
Similar situation here. I sold a Canopus Pure3D-II (Voodoo2) that I bought refurbished for 150% of what I paid for it, at a time that better tech (TNT) was out for cheaper. Blew my mind, but happily padded my wallet :)
Probably the only reason why I'm not a complete e-auction junkie is that I've not yet figured out how to effectively pack stuff for shipping. Else, I've got a room full of junk that's ready to go. Anyone want lightly used back issues of DDJ? hehe. I remember a buddy of mine regularly attending a monthly community yard sale, just to see what would sell and what wouldn't. I paid for a lot of pizza that way, and it was a good way to kill a Saturday morning.
:)
Seriously, national/international online auctions tend to cater to high-price localities. People may get greater-than-expected prices for items, but that price may still be cheaper than what the buyer can get the item for in their area of the world. I'm separating this factor from the competition factor, which also drives prices. The sum of these two effects plays upon the profit motive of people who can get their hands on goods at a relative discount.
One other note, from watching online auctions for a few years: quality information results in higher price. I saw this on display in the article, and I suppose this is due to the "blind" nature of the auction.
So, why do you think that the recent Internet transaction tax bill is originating from South Carolina? Their captive markets, decended from plantation economy, are starting to get away from them, and the Old Money is getting restless.
Last time Rob posted stats, Slashdot was getting 1 million hits a month. eBay gets 1 million hits an HOUR. There is no "Slashdot Effect" in the world of eBay. I'm sure any eBay sys-admins reading your post are chuckling quietly to themselves.
did you ever notice how 50 years ago there were no 'addicts'???
(The Gibson Article linked above)
makes the opinions here (especially katz) look like the chickenscratch most of them are...
+&x
It sure sounds like a typical tale of a gambling addict. Some people are just wired in a way that they can not use/do something enjoyable with moderation. Having been an arcade game addict, an alcohol abuser, a compulsive record collector a nicotine addict and a MUD addict consecutively (luckily not simultaneously) I know what it feels like, and I've met a lot of 'natural addicts' like me. The only way to get rid of an addiction, as I've found, is to give it up completely, cold turkey. I'll never buy another record, drink alcohol, smoke or play a MUD again, and I'll steer clear of activities/substances that I've not tried yet, but have seen others get addicted to, like drugs, gambling, usenet, eBay and Quake. Perhaps I should stop reading slashdot too.
Damn, maybe I could start selling email accounts now from dusted.net. Now my roommate has all sorts of ideas of selling his number (176377) and getting out of debt. Sheesh, the things people buy.
Demona's Law - "User data expands to exceed available bandwidth." ("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's,
See eBay does have a good purpose: He didn't have to be with Tori Spelling...
I sold a slightly used (watched once) DVD on eBay for MORE than it cost at any of a half dozen DVD discounters on the net. Very, very weird.
Can you imagine coupling eBay addiction with Slashdot addiction...
How long before we see that? :)
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
My wife has had great success selling used kids clothes on Ebay for 2 and 3 times what we bought it for (often used) several years ago. I've noticed a definite competitive effect. People just don't like to lose an action - and they bid stuff up for way more than its really worth for no other reason than to make sure somebody else doesn't get the junk.
I have no problem taking there money though. If I can help somebody's self esteem and make a few bucks in the process what the hell. Its probably still cheaper than therapy!
my impression of EBay is that it's a place where it's much more easy to lose money than to win it, *especially* as a buyer. sure, there are success stories of unloading junk for far more than it's worth, but if you have some techie skills, how does it compare to your hourly rates at work? probably not that great, actually. I'm sure it's possible to get good buying deals on Ebay, but that'd be by finding things that look good to you but noone else is bidding on, rather than playing the competitive game of overbidding for that-thing-you-really-need. a popular auction is a near-guaranty that you'll get screwed: either you don't get the thing, or you're the one who was willing to pay the most for it, which means you're willing to pay more than the average of what people think it's worth. sounds mostly like a losing game to me.
hint: go to your own user page (linked from any comment of yours; just bookmark it), and there it shows all your recent posts, with the number of replies. a hell of a lot easier than reloading stories just so you can grep for your nick and find if people replied.
People use eBay to sell because most of the buyers are at eBay. More potential buyers tends to result in higher selling prices.
People use eBay to buy because there is a wider section of items available there (due to there being more sellers). It's a feedback effect: more sellers = more buyers = more sellers, etc.
Oh, and most of the users of eBay don't give a flying fig what eBay's backend OS happens to be. They only care if it works, not what it is.
Hmmmmm... approximately 40 positive comments before a singular negative one about emails and phone calls. Has sold a Madonna Doll "applause".
I think that eBay is a terrible place to buy anything that you can buy elsewhere. Like that digital camera. I guess there's a few reasons for this.
As someone else said, people will bid stupidly just because they don't want to lose. So you bid $50 for something that costs $100 in the shops, and you feel pretty good. Then someone outbids you. You get into a bidding war. Even when it goes over $100, it seems worth paying "that little bit extra" not to LOSE. Not me, of course, but I'm sure some people feel this way. :-)
Then there's flat-out ignorant buyers. Don't know what somethings costs in the shops, can't be bothered to comparison shop, it's easier just to bid some bucks on eBay.
Then there was the interesting comment someone made about high-priced localities. I bought a Diamond Viper 770 TNT2 card on eBay for more than what it costs in the shops. The American shops, that is. But all the places I found that had lower prices wouldn't ship internationally (I live in Australia). The eBay seller was happy to. I paid twenty bucks less than any price I could find here in Sydney. Maybe similar things were going on with those digital cameras?
But for old stuff, weird stuff, I love eBay. I'm mostly interested in music (that TNT2 card was the only computer related thing I ever bought there). I can find so many old singles, bootlegs, LPs, stuff that simply is not to be found in record shops. Unfortunately there's a lot of stupid bidding goes on. A lot of the time I get outbid so fiercely I just have to think "what is wrong with this idiot, that they would pay so much?!". But maybe it's the last item they need to finish collecting someone's entire discography? All you can do is shrug and assume that sometime someone else will be auctioning the same thing some time soon..
I've only ever sold a few things there.. records that while not bona-fide "rarities" or "collectibles", aren't things you can just go out and shop for. I've gotten good prices.. in the vicinity of $US20 for CDs. If I took these to a second-hand record shop, they'd give me $5 or $10 for them, and that's Australian dollars. So I'm happy.. the buyer is presumably happy.. and eBay are certainly happy.
Og the Cave Man probably collected interesting rocks he found sitting outside the opening to his cave
Just visualizing that image is quite amusing.
I first tried out Ebay on a whim - I had heard about it through a friend of my GF, and decided to see what it was all about (this was sometime last year). I had been to several real life auctions in the past (mostly for furniture) - and Ebay was easy stuff compared to fast talking auctioneers (although, funny thing about these guys is that after you listen to them long enough, they begin to sound normal, and everyone else seems to sound slow after the auction - including yourself!).
Anyhow, my first item I bid on - and won - was a Dinky model of a Tucker (a gift for a friend). Since then, I have bid and won multiple times (about 20 or so), and have highly rated feedback. I have sold once (that was a nightmare - due to some a-hole with zero feedback rating bidding on the item - a laptop - then not paying. I eventually sold it later on Ebay to an honest buyer). Only a couple of times have I bid and one things that I think I got screwed on (one is this old radar detector I have in my truck - doesn't seem to do much than beep when I get close to cities or microwave towers - oh well, only $10).
There have been times I have thought about bidding on something, then looked around a bit and found it on the Net for a cheaper price. However, the best things I have bought on Ebay tend to be those things that are impossible to find anymore in any other way:
I collect old Tomy toys - you, the kind before Tomy became a brand for toddlers...
Through Ebay I have bought both an Air Jammer Car and a Chatbot (I already have a Verbot and an Omnibot 2000 - just need an Omnibot to fill in the middle a bit!). Not related, but one of my most recent purchases was that of a Milton Bradley Big Trak. Works great too (I am thinking about converting it to wireless computer control)!
I often wonder what my Tomy Zoids Giant Zrk would go for...
Or my Bandai Spacewarp sets...
That is all speculation - I will never let go of these things anyhow - can't get such things anymore - toys nowaday's almost universally suck (not all - but most).
I haven't bid on Ebay in a while (my last purchase was a VGA -> TV converter - X works great with it, I am going to use it for VR), but I expect to again in the future.
Some people are addicted to Ebay - I am not one of them...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Because there's more people searching Ebay for
stuff than any of the other auctions. I recently
put up an old Sun 3/50 computer on Ebay for $0.50,
the cost for me to put it on Ebay) and was surprised to see the price jump to $46! If anyone's interested in what a Sun 3/50 is I have some info here.
I was ready to take it to the great computer recycling center in the sky. I guess one man's junk is another man's treasure.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
He may have written things in a fanciful light but it looks to be based in fact. All you have to do is surf to eBay and run a search on the user feedback for fish8. It's hilarious! This guy really knows how to hype pure crap! Check out his writup for the Depp match boxes.
As a magazine columnist it isn't surprising that he'd interview celebrities.
Heheh. We on the west coast *LOVE* it when people post contests by midnight, EST. Oh. Yeah. 9pm. Sure could be doing other things at the moment (taking a walk, watching TV with kids), but oh no, gotta get on the 'net because some crazy east ender decided to close it at midnight >G.
(for the humor impaired: the preceding was *humor*. specifically, sarcasm.)
Seriously, though, I've seen auctions where people do pay way more than *local retail* prices. If people are willing to pay $100 more than retail on a digital camera, and pay shipping...
Here's a story of something I sold on eBay.
:-(
The very morning of the day my wife's Powerbook 1400 broke, we talked of selling it to fund a new computer purchase. As Murphey's Law would have it, that day I managed to crack the screen-- leaving about 85% of the screen unviewable.
What did I do? Put it up on eBay anyway!
[Up for bid, one Powerbook 1400/117 48M Ram, 750M HD. Everything works except screen and ethernet card.]
Included a description of the screen and picture. I also noted that I had a practically new 3 gig 2 1/2inch drive I could throw in for an extra $150.
The result? Final bid over $400. Buyer opted to buy the HD. In the end, we got over $650 for a BROKEN Powerbook! I love eBay! That was close to what we wanted to get if it was working!
The only reason we put it up is that I noted that someone had sold a near identical model, with a borken screen. However, he had only gotten $150 for it. Personally, I would have been glad to have gotten that.
I wanted to post a link to the auction, but it was over 6 months ago and it has disaapeared from eBay's server.
That's not what I meant.
However, when I started to do a bit of research into how and where to place an item I wished to sell (D.Net blocks as it happens), at first I couldn't even find a place to list it, but then the places I did find had total crap in them. Eg;
- FIND ANYONE, ANTIME FROM YOUR HOME COMPUTER! $6.00
- ~ ~ ~ ~ BANNED IN 27 COUNTRIES!!! ~ ~ ~ ~
:) $5.95 - {~-~} BILL GATES JUST CALLED ME CRYING {~-~} $5.99
- HACKS & CRACKS-NEW & SEALED!!! $7.80
- Make Ebay Your Career! + Free Software! WOW!! $4.95
This is a sample of items in the general software category. When this sort of stuff arrives in my inbox, I call it spam. I'm not going to waste my time or money competing with this junk.How can anyone possibly get addicted to this?
CJ.
Who the hell would want to 'boink' Tori Spelling?
>I've heard, and known, people who would scope out
>yard sales and plan routes for the quickest way
>to hit all of 'em.. it's sad, if you ask me. and
>they'd even take their kids along. with no
>breakfast! ack!
I remember when I was a kid, my mom would take me out to saturday morning yard sales. Of course, she always made these huge breakfasts beforehand, and only went during the summer, so I guess it's not as bad as what others went through.
Besides, she always took me out the the mall every other week or so right afterward to buy a Transformer. Damn, I wish I still had that Starscream... He was cool. >:)
right?
Funny, I sit around a little too much just hitting reload to try and get the latest up too the minute Slashdot sotries. Am I addicted? Yes. Am I ashamed? No.
Beyond the fact that we don't have to send Slashdot a cashier's check to receive our daily reloads, how is this any different from Slashdot addiction?
(I know, redundany, stupid question, but I just had to ask it.)
-Serk, the happy Slashdot addict.
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
Btw, Worth uses an annoying registration and nagging windows. That's very annoying.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Why do so many people use eBay? Their user interface SUCKS, they *CHARGE* to post auctions (even if nobody buys it), plus they charge a % if somebody DOES buy it. Personally, I use Yahoo because it's 100% free, has a much nicer user interface, and actually has good catagories to keep the auctions separated and so you can find what you are looking for. And it's not full of "make money fast, only $5!!!" actions or warez homemade cd sellers.
Plus eBay switched everything over to IIS instead of Apache after the server crashed for unknown reasons for 24 hours a couple times. Who knows what MS put in there, they are probably recording everybody's NSA_KEY that post software auctions.
Of course none of us have noticed anything even slightly resembling this.
/.
No, no similarities at all in constantly reloading
First?
I know I've definately found myself bored to death hitting the reload button a million times per minute on /. or a /. thread. Kinda freaks you out when you realize it and force yourself away from the computer. I'm sure others have had worse problems :)
I bet these guys have some terrible withdrawal symptoms when EBay goes offline for a day or two at a time...
See Man With Complete "Mama's Family" Video Library Never Going On eBay Drunk Again for our favourite news journal's cutting insights into this growing crisis.
"NEWTON, MA--In a solemn pledge to himself and the
world, Kevin Wollersheim, the new owner of a complete Mama's Family video library, announced Monday that he will "never, ever again" shop the online auction house eBay while inebriated."
--
Xenu loves you!
People use ebay because people use ebay. It's that simple. The more popular it is, the more useful it is. That's why it's one of the few internet companies that is making money and will probably continue to make money.
As for your other points, the user interface could certainly use improvement etc, but their backend is fairly solid notwithstanding the outages. I'd bet on ebay improving before a smaller, better rival takes it's place.
As for using IIS, oh well, IIS can't find out any more about you than your browser tells it, so get yourself a real browser and quit yer complaining.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Collecting is a old habit, that gives many people a purpose in life. The main force behind ebay addiction (IMHO) is purpose. People like to having a strong feeling inside that drives them - and ebay, in paticular, collecting can give such a drive. Everyone can collect whereas many people can't be derive daily motivation from programming or singing or whatever occupation they have. With Collecting there is always a goal, but it's major strength is that the goal is unbounding.
I've seen, and been involved in ebay addiction all to often. But even before ebay i've witnessed collection addictions.
Joseph Elwell.
Yes, indeed.. collection addictions have gone on long before Ebay and will continue long after, I'm sure, because there are just some people in this world that like to collect things, and Internet/Ebay/etc hasn't been around forever.
I've heard, and known, people who would scope out yard sales and plan routes for the quickest way to hit all of 'em.. it's sad, if you ask me. and they'd even take their kids along. with no breakfast! ack!
Not for me.. that's for sure
Insert mind here.
I had no problem getting right to the article.
<tim><
Wow, I gave away one of these with two 19" b/w monitors three years ago, because they weren't worth the cost of shipping. How I wish eBay was around back then...
I think my number of posts has tripled ever since I started feeling rewarding for posting intelligent comments.
. . . yeah, but I've always found that posting bizarre and disruptive gibberish is its own reward.
Each to his own, I guess.
By the way, another SlashBay mutation would be going to eBay and posting auctions of Beowulf clusters made out of idiotic things like Palm Pilots, cellphones running Linux, and clones of extinct tigers -- this would bring "bizarre and disruptive gibberish" into the equation as well!
Yeah, yeah, and that Rock 'n' Roll music is gonna turn our children into Satan worshippers! Seriously, though, eBay is a problem for exactly the sort of people who get addicted to things like Dungeons & Dragons or gambling or (God forbid) Gallagher-- that is, people with problems. So eBay is just one more manifestation for an addictive personality to get its fix. So I have some sympathy for eBay addicts. Only, not too much. If Johnny5 wasn't cruising the bids for a Brad Radke rookie car in mint condition or a 1956 Elvis doll, he'd be Grand Vizier of Oltoss or throwing back Old No. 7. And at least with eBay you stand a reasonable chance of getting even a piddling return on your time investment.
I was considering buying a digital camera. My
brother suggested I check out eBay and sure
enough, someone was auctioning off a model I was
considering. But I did a little search and found
a price for the the thing on Buycomp. More net
research showed this was an older model that had
been much more expensive 6 mos previously. The
guy on eBay ended up selling 2 of these things at
auction for more than the NEW price at Buycomp.
Moral: You really have to know what you're doing
or else you're a sucker.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Crazy as it sounds, I'd like to see Rob eBay some Slashdot goodies for us to feed on. Heck, I'd bid. I'd even buy moderator points. YUMMY! 'Sides, can anyone imagine the fun that the Slashdot Effect would cause those poor guys? Better set up some eBay mirrors, Rob...
Yes, my wife works for Ameritrade... :)
find an early 1980's Bandai 'Frisky Tom' handheld VFD game (great color flourscent display and game play) for a nice price 'cause the seller did'nt put 'vfd' in the title so people searching for one couldn't find it - love it.
Keep it up, sellers!
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I don't fully agree with the article. Many times Ebay is the best place to get stuff that you cannot find locally. And your only paying too much if you pay too much! I've come away with boatloads of crap cheap! Try to get a 5 station wireless 2.4 ghz network up in your house for under $100! Thanks to ebay, I pretty much ended up with a Cisco 4500M 2ser 2eth for $550. Cabletron enterprise switch (smartswitch 6k) loaded with 2x 24 port fully switched boards and redundant power supplies for $500. I can't get this stuff locally. Cabletron wants over $10,000 for the same switch. Ebay to the rescue! Ebay is great. I sold a PM2E-20 for a fair amount. Basically, the guy got it cheaper than what the other people on usenet wanted, and I made a profit over what I bought it for on yahoo auctions (I had to buy 2 to get one, then sell the extra one). We both made out. Addict? Maybe. But I can't get this kind of stuff locally. Selling stuff does sort of suck. Anyways, gotta wait for my $45 UPS (with new batteries!) to arrive to hold up my Cisco and Cabletron during power outages. 1000va even! (I already have the same UPS for the servers. MFG warranty rocks on it). The author of the article failed to mention. You _CAN_ get deals. I have lots of specialized stuff I've found from ebay that would cost $500+ ... Ebay? $55. If your looking for rare stuff, and don't expect alot of competition it rocks.
I don't fully agree with the article. Many times
... Ebay? $55. If your looking for rare stuff, and don't expect alot of competition it rocks.
Ebay is the best place to get stuff that you cannot find locally. And your only paying too much if you pay too much! I've come away with boatloads of crap cheap! Try to get a 5 station wireless 2.4 ghz network up in your house for under $100! Thanks to ebay, I pretty much ended up with a Cisco 4500M 2ser 2eth for $550. Cabletron enterprise switch (smartswitch 6k) loaded with 2x 24 port fully switched boards and redundant power supplies for $500. I can't get this stuff locally. Cabletron wants over $10,000 for the same switch. Ebay to the rescue!
Ebay is great. I sold a PM2E-20 for a fair amount. Basically, the guy got it cheaper than what the other people on usenet wanted, and I made a profit over what I bought it for on yahoo auctions (I had to buy 2 to get one, then sell the extra one). We both made out.
Addict? Maybe. But I can't get this kind of stuff locally. Selling stuff does sort of suck. Anyways, gotta wait for my $45 UPS (with new batteries!) to arrive to hold up my Cisco and Cabletron during power outages. 1000va even! (I already have the same UPS for the servers. MFG
warranty rocks on it).
The author of the article failed to mention. You _CAN_ get deals. I have lots of specialized stuff I've found from ebay that would cost $500+
...and now that I can view my karma points on my user page, it's even worse. I have this inexplicable urge to try to figure out how to boost my slashdot karma. Post more, meta-moderate more, etc.
No, really, I'm not addicted. I swear.
I have an alpha pager. Last weekend I got intimately familiar with the SNPP perl module. That's all I'm going to say...
(somebody shoot me, please)
William Gibson had a very good piece in Wired on the same subject at http://www.wired.com/wired/archiv e/7.01/ebay.html. It also (very successfully and poetically, I thought) brought eBay addiction into a more far-reaching context. Plus it convinced me that he could do much, much more than sci-fi.
So this article is about a guy who has a $200/hr job yet prefers to make money (at $200/day) with his big eBay addiction, develops a hankerin' to collect "antique" electronic hand calculators, rubs elbows with Tom Arnold and was mere moments away from having the opportunity to doink Tori Spelling while at the same time having a completely dysfunctional relationship with wife and daughter? It just sounds way too "cool" for me to really believe it's at all true; more like a character from some Neil Stephenson short story.
It's maybe slightly insightful, but we've known that people get "Addicted" to certain websites for about as long as, well, around about as long as slashdot has been on the scene.
-=-=-=-=-
-=-=-=-=-
My mom's going to kick you in the face!
I feel so dirty selling my stuff on eBay, just because so many people are addicted to it. Also I have a bad stigma associated with it because eBay's servers seem to be down so often. Whatever you're selling, just make sure like you're not selling your soul. I feel like such a freak doing it...
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
I have gone through an ebay addiction myself, although not hardly as extreme as the one described in this article. I have since recovered, and manage to maintain a more normal approach to things, using auction services when necessary, but not obsessively slavering over them.
I have put a little thought into just what makes these creations so addictive. I think alot of it has to do with a more general class of websites -- those which are vaguely interactive. Just look at how many of us spend our time reading and replying to stuff on Slashdot. Now amplify it to an arena in which the whole purpose is interaction, and you get the drawing force that much more strengthening.
Next is the fact that ebay is open 24 hours a day, and your auctions can change any time during that period -- the compulsion is very strong to just check it when you wake up, then when you get home in the evening. But then you're sitting at work, and you wonder if you've won the auction on that widget and you check... then 10 minutes later wonder once more what the current bid is. Put millions of people into an almost instantly responsive environment, and you can easily buld an obsession.
Furthermore, as has been mentioned previously, there is the sheer quantity of *junk*, especially collectables, on these places. Collecting things is an age-old hobby -- Og the Cave Man probably collected interesting rocks he found sitting outside the opening to his cave.
Finally, there is the financial aspect. It is possible to get rick quick... and to pay much more than you could ever want for something. This, especially, combined with the previous collectables factor, I think lead to a very strong motivation to keep coming back, and stay on top of an environment which changes every minute of every day.
Combine all of this with an addictive personality, which easily obsesses on the smallest thing, and you have a recipe for a broken home.
It shouldn't take 5 pages of text to tell that this person has a serious addiction and needs help. *reloading slashdot a few more times* Hrrmm... no new articles. *reloading slashdot again* Huh. Still no new articles... *reloading slashdot*.... That guy should really seek help - he'll spend all his time online doing nothing if he doesn't break the habit...
--
That said, ebay in particular seems to have some odd cultural problems. Go read the evaluations people write of each other. What sound like perfectly ordinary transactions get reviews like "Fantastic! Great to do business with! 9 out of 10!!!" and Crom forbid you should tell the truth, namely, that everything went pretty much ordinarily. My girlfriend once bought some jewelry on ebay, and wrote a review of the seller like "completely satisfactory", and he wrote to her sounding very hurt, asking why she hadn't praised him more highly...
I have some swampland in Florida....I'm offering it only to you slahdot readers. The line forms on the left. No pushing, no shoving...everybody will get a crack at this chance of a lifetime.
Daily crazy stuff from e-bay
Purse made out of a bull's scrotum
Duck dicks
The William Gibson article was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this headline on /.
I second the recommendation that everyone check it out...definitely worth the read, especially if you are a Gibson fan....
Some people take them very seriously you know. If you look in the back of Western Horseman, or any kind of cattle mag, there they are - golf clubs and canes made out of a ex-bull's reproductive parts. Plus, you can even get the purses, but on a ittle stand. I have no idea what you would fill them wit
h - candy???
I can see how ebay makes normally reasonable collectors obsessed; you just can't have a complete collection of anything, there's always more to buy. And just when you think you've got it all, there will be yet another seller soon, and there you go adding to your collection again.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
I have some swampland in Florida....I'm offering it only to you slashdot readers. The line forms on the left. No pushing, no shoving...everybody will get a crack at this chance of a lifetime.
I have a problem. I'm addicted to trying to underbid people in the antique pocket watch section as well as the cheap PC system section (I want me a linux box). Have I tried going cold-turkey? Of course I have. Went cold-ebay for approximately 3 months... but you know what brought me back? trying to find a specific poster for my girlfriend. So instead of my girlfriend trying to save me from my addiction, because of her, I'm doomed to clicking the reload button until 2 am. EST because for some dumb reason, people on the West Coast always seem to set up their auctions at midnight west coast time which is 2 or 3 am east coast time (more of a reason to switch to a standard internet time).
But there is hope. There is a use for ebay that will allow you to surf around ebay and get stuff for free without having to bid. I've found, being a graphic designer, that I can find stock photographs for tons of weird stuff that NO STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY CD will carry. Looking for a picture of a shag rug? doubt you'll find it in Photodisc, but I guarantee you'll find a photo in ebay. looking for crazy pair of sunglasses? same thing. TONS OF IMAGES!!! YIPPEE!!!
That's how I got over my addiction, by chanelling my need to find junk at ebay with the ability to get all the stock photographs I could ever use.
Jerck Labs has announced that researchers associated with the development of Prozac have slightly altered the molecular structure of Prozac to increase it's efficacy against the obsessive/compulsive disorders exhibited by both Ebay and Home Shopping Channel uses. Bayzac, the name given this newly enhanced drug, will only be sold via the internet. Jerck Labs has indicated to stock market analysts that Bayzac will be the first drug targeted and sold to users via the medium they are abusing -- Ebay and the Home Shopping Channel. Bayzac will only be sold in these two forums. Initial reaction to Jerck Labs' announcement was muted on the NYSE. Market analyst Jim Beeglemeister attributes this to the unique marketing ploy of Jerck Labs. "It's like selling an anti-alcholism medication diluted inside a can of Budweiser." Beeglemeister has advised his customers to sell Jerck Lab securities as soon as possible. Jerck Labs has refused to comment. Fnord.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
ooooooo like some other unnamed Internet news source commonly referred to only as a combination of two ASCII characters (namely, 0x2f 0x2e). Good thing I'm not an addict myself, I only reload the front page every 10 minutes...
Guikachu: Resource editor for PalmOS developers