n a semi-related note, I regret that for Americans born in the late 70s like myself, I'll never be able to "eyeball" metric unit.
Since I am an American and was born in the EARLY 70s and can eyeball metric just fine I think you just haven't had enough practice.
The mistake you are making is trying to consciously do conversions. That's like trying to speak a foreign language while doing a constant translation. Necessary at first but once you become fluent you just start to think in the new language.
when I don't have a calculator on hand, which is extremely rarely.
What do you sleep with one under your pillow or something? I'm sure you'll be doing lots of unit conversions using a calculator while driving at highway speeds.
I didn't say you said it. I said your logic...
Since you proved you couldn't follow your own logic I'll just keep presuming you can't follow mine. I'm well aware of what follows from the logic of my statements. And for the record, yes having a single language would be very helpful in a lot of ways - and tragic in others. But that is an irrelevant strawman since we are talking about numbers and measurements, not language. 95% of the worlds population already uses metric. If there were no advantage in it they would not have done it.
I somehow doubt you'll find many French people speaking primarily English in their normal lives.
You've never been to France have you? Plenty of folks in France speak English quite fluently and since 89% of schoolchildren in the EU learn English as a second language it's not hard for them to find folks to practice on.
There isn't any significant complication, that's what you're missing.
I'm not missing a thing. There only isn't a complication if you never leave or communicate with no one outside the US. Travel abroad someday and see if anyone shares your naive opinions.
There would be real complication if you try to cram the metric system down people's throats, as you try to force an entire nation of people to use units different from the ones they naturally think in.
So explain to me how 5.7 billion people outside the US managed to utilize metric daily and the 300 million here find it too difficult? Nobody is forcing the US to change and no one could anyway. But that doesn't mean that switching to metric isn't a good idea. Heck it's already been tried once - albeit in.
The advantages afforded by metric are extremely small, and the disadvantages in a conversion would be huge. Why, exactly, would any sane person want to convert?
You have that exactly backwards. The initial conversion costs while significant are trivial compared to the long term savings.
If you want to believe that dividing by some arbitrary conversion factor is easier than moving a decimal you just go right ahead believing your delusions. By your own arguments it's the same difficulty with a calculator and metric is easier without one. QED metric is easier overall. You should be disappearing in a poof of logic right now.
Ease of communication doesn't cut it, either.
Riiiiiight. Because unit conversion mistakes never occur and it's MUCH easier to do unit conversions than to just use the same measurement system everywhere.
Even ignoring social issues There is a measurable economic cost to using multiple measurement systems. It adds unneeded complexity to business, engineering and scientific endeavors especially those that cross international boundaries.
By your logic, we should all be using the same language...
I don't recall ever saying that and I would have said that if that is what I meant. However, English has become the de-facto language of international commerce and scientific discourse if you want to get picky about it. No need to "curse the heathens" since 95% of the world seems to realize that a common measurement system is a useful thing.
Besides imperial units these days are defined against metric units. An inch is explicitly defined as 2.54 centimeters. So you're using metric whether you realize it or not. Why not just cut out the complication and use the real thing?
12 being evenly divisible by 2,3, and 4 is quite convenient in some domains, particulary construction.
As is 10 being divisible by 2 and 5. What's your point? Somehow 95% of the worlds population seems to build buildings just fine using the metric system. Yes there are some corner cases where non-metric units are advantageous but these are rare and industries which need them are in not prohibited from using a different measurement system when appropriate.
you MUST use the US Dollar and MUST know ALL the following language...
Must? No. Just like you don't HAVE to use metric. It just makes things easier and more standard.
Actually you can do pretty darn well with just dollars and English. I know because I've done it myself all over the world. English is the primary language of commerce these days and is also the primary language used for scientific discourse. A lot of commodities (notably oil) are denominated in units of dollars regardless of country of origin.
So you are just like most of the people reading this, myself included? Good for you.
and as necessary I will calculate conversions between them. Why the big fuss over 50 year old data?
You didn't hear me making a fuss over it. I did however reply to someone whining about how metric has no advantages which is 95% of the worlds population seems to disagree with.
Stop being a cry-baby.
We're all really impressed with your unit conversion prowess. I bet you pick up all the girls by showing off how you know metric AND imperial units.
And how do you propose we convince every non computer geek in the world that this is a good idea? Further are you going to pay for the math classes virtually everyone will need?
There is nothing inherently superior about the metric system.
Sure there is. Ease of unit conversion and ease of communication with the REST OF THE FREAKING WORLD. We live in a global economy - we should start acting like it.
Why does dividing by 10 matter so much, anyway? Because you have 10 fingers?
Because we use a base 10 counting system for most calculations. Having a measurement system that is highly compatible with the numeral system most humans use makes sense.
Really, we should be trying to move to a system of measure that is base 2.
Really? Go ahead and tell your mother you came 1011 miles to see her - I'm sure she'll be impressed.
People in the antique business usually know when they're holding an actual piece of Tiffany silver work in their hands.
That's the big difference right there. EBay never holds the item so there really is no way they can reasonably tell if an item is a fake. The only real way is to actually inspect the item AND have a paper trail to help authenticate its origin. That's what they do in the art world for valuable paintings. EBay is looking for plausible deniability when they know damn good and well they aren't doing the one thing that actually can ensure authenticity reliably.
Interesting that I got the flamebait mod on the last post though:) I thought I was clear that I was not insulting you at all, just that it relied too heavily on honesty in Wall Street, which I think is pretty scarce lately:D
No offense taken on my part. I thought the flamebait mod was way out of line as well. You were just stating a reasonable opinion and I thought you were pretty clear about your intentions.
Ebay's growth doesn't have to be by squeezing the sellers.
Exactly my point. EBay would do a lot better in the long run if they treated their sellers like genuine partners instead of cows to be milked. They cannot and should not try to please everyone but their solution to increasing profits so far has just been to raise prices on sellers and frankly they're just about at the point they cannot do that much more.
For example, they bought Skype and they could do something with it to grow their company.
Skype to my mind is the most retarded thing eBay has done to date. It has zero fit with their current business model or with their skill set. It's probably the clearest signal that the eBay management is seriously lacking in talent or discipline. Of course that's why they had a $1.4 billion write down on their purchase of Skype.
The only used books I bought in the last decade or so have been from Amazon, not eBay.
Likewise. EBay is a terrible marketplace for book sales - even the unusual or rare. Amazon on the other hand is pretty good most of the time. My only real quibble with selling through Amazon is that they force sellers to use non-traceable shipping methods such as USPS Media Mail which just invites fraud. Otherwise Amazon is a pretty decent way to sell books and unopened CDs/DVDs.
I am not insulting you or flaming you either. Those bastards LIE. LIE, LIE, and LIE some more. It's always worse than what they are telling you, and I am sure some pretty fancy "Arthur Anderson" type accounting can hide how many users they have lost.
Again, nothing surprising to me here since professionally I'm a degreed industrial engineer and a certified accountant. When I'm not trying to be an entrepreneur I'm in the business of operations consulting so I need to know every sort of problem I'll run into including cooked books. I know all about the games that can be played with the numbers as well as the operations.
If you want the the short version of my opinion on eBay's prospects, I think eBay is on the verge of some serious problems but they aren't there yet. It's sort of like Microsoft in a way. Few people really love them but they haven't quite pissed everyone off enough to really torpedo their business. I think the biggest threat to them actually is litigation from luxury goods makers. That has the potential to drastically increase their costs and open the door to other marketplaces. But I don't expect anything in the near future. I expect eBay to remain a cash cow for the next several years at least.
But hey, here's to hoping eBay goes down like the Titanic...
Nope. What eBay has is the largest marketplace with the greatest network effects. Don't get me wrong, their brand is very very important to the equation. They aren't completely separable issues but I submit that name recognition is not the underlying driver of their success. You can have great name recognition without being a successful business.
As soon as another company comes along that offers anything close to eBay I will give them a shot. I doubt that I am alone.
You aren't alone but I think we are both going to be waiting quite a while. EBay for better or worse is going to be very hard to displace.
No, I don't think it is a big assumption at all. I think you underestimate just how pissed off people are, both buyers and sellers alike.
Underestimate? I have over 10,000 feedbacks and sold literally millions of dollars of merchandise through eBay. I no longer sell anything through eBay because eBay policies ended up costing me tens of thousands of dollars.
EBay basically made it impossible to do business with them and choked the life out of a company I worked very hard to build. You think I don't understand how pissed off people are? I understand better than almost anyone you'll ever meet.
eBay is losing both buyers and sellers at a pretty fantastic rate.
Really? You know that for sure? Because there is almost no financial data I can find to support that hypothesis.
volume sellers don't cost them any less per transaction than the average joe. Why the need for a volume discount?
You have to understand fixed costs versus variable costs. Most of eBay's costs are fixed meaning they do not change for better or worse regardless of the number of transactions. EBay has to (in the short run) pay their staff salaries and the electric bill regardless of how many items are sold on eBay. However this means that eBay's unit cost DECREASES with each additional unit sold.
EBay so far has taken the approach to increase unit prices instead of decreasing unit costs. Both increase contribution margin but you can only increase either one to a point. eBay has raised rates about as far as they can so the only alternative is to increase volume which requires incentives for sellers to sell more. This is where volume discounts come into play. EBay basically trades some of their savings from the reduced unit costs in the form of incentives to sellers to sell more stuff. That's how every large retailer on the planet makes a profit.
I am buying moreand more from Amazon.com than Ebay lately.
Depends on what you are buying. For books, CDs, DVDs and new electronics, Amazon is a better place to buy usually. You have to remember that eBay is primarily a secondary market You don't go to eBay to buy new stuff or if you do you should not expect unusually low prices. For used or old stuff, you can frequently get prices on eBay around 1/3 to 1/2 of retail - in other words wholesale/liquidation pricing.
I've noticed recently that ebay has become rather expensive with lots of dumb bidders bidding things up past a sane price
Odds are those aren't "dumb" bidders but rather shill bidders. Against eBay's rules but it happens all the time.
If Amazon stopped selling books entirely, or IBM abandoned their mainframe business, then their shareholders would be up in arms, and rightly so.
Shareholders care about FUTURE free cash flow. If there is a good business case for exiting those businesses then the shareholders will be fine with it. General Electric is looking to sell off their lighting and appliance divisions right now. Why? Those divisions can no longer provide the demanded return on capital.
The IBM and Amazon examples don't really work here:
You are missing the point. The point is that companies often exit businesses that they were successful in. Even if they keep them they become a much smaller piece of the pie. I can come up with other examples if you like. How about Nintendo which started as a card company? Or 3M which originally sold corundum for grinding wheels? The point is that lots of businesses exit particular marketplaces all the time.
Many of the hard-core ebay whiners on its website are practically BEGGING google to open up an auction site, mostly because it will have practically millions as a buyer base overnight.
Google doesn't want the liability. If anything kills eBay it's going to be getting sued by every luxury good maker on the planet. EBay claims they want to ensure authentic goods but is unwilling to take the steps needed to ensure authenticity - namely physical inspection of items and their paper trail. Such physical inspection is completely outside Google's business model so they would be in the same boat eBay is liability-wise.
All that of course assumes Google could take marketshare from eBay where Amazon and Yahoo failed. That's a BIG assumption.
I know several people who used to do a lot of business on Ebay who are rapidly becoming disgusted with it because of its clear preference for giant sellers over individuals; I'm not at all surprised to hear that this is a general trend.
The only sellers that should be disgusted are ones with their head in the sand. EBay's costs mostly fixed so they grow through volume. You get volume through larger customers who can provide that volume. Economic inevitability.
EVERY non-regulated company I'm aware of besides eBay provides volume discounts in some fashion for larger customers. I was an individual seller as well as a high volume power seller. One of the (many) reasons I no longer sell through eBay is precisely BECAUSE they provided no incentive for me to bring additional business to them. They kept raising rates instead of providing incentives to bring additional volume. Basically they priced me (and lots of others) out of their marketplace. It was too expensive as an individual or a business to continue to sell on eBay.
but why are they abandoning the business that made them successful in the first place?
The short answer is that they decided a long time ago to become a publicly traded company and the growth demands of being public is the deal with the devil you make to get equity funding. That's why companies don't really want to go public unless the owners are either cashing out (private equity) or they have no other choice. Had eBay remained a privately held company they could have chosen to stay their present size.
Businesses out grow their original business model all the time. Some businesses simply do not scale beyond a certain point. Amazon started as an online bookseller that had no warehouses of their own. That only scaled to a point. IBM got out of the personal computer business not long ago. That particular niche of the industry just didn't hold enough growth/profit potential for them anymore and was more of a distraction than an asset. When you are a publicly traded company shareholders demand growth and eBay has hit a wall with being the world's premier online flea market.
Sadly that is not all eBay has. EBay has network effects working for it which makes it VERY hard to displace them no matter how much money and talent is thrown at the problem. Buyers go where the sellers are and vice versa. Amazon and Yahoo both tried to take market share from eBay and both failed miserably. There are lots of other auction and e-commerce sites out there but none of them are likely to displace eBay anytime soon.
That's not to say eBay won't cut their own throat (they might) but that's pretty much what it will take to make a real dent in eBay's market share. Ebay's business tends towards a natural monopoly as do many marketplaces.
Slashdot Mirror
n a semi-related note, I regret that for Americans born in the late 70s like myself, I'll never be able to "eyeball" metric unit.
Since I am an American and was born in the EARLY 70s and can eyeball metric just fine I think you just haven't had enough practice.
The mistake you are making is trying to consciously do conversions. That's like trying to speak a foreign language while doing a constant translation. Necessary at first but once you become fluent you just start to think in the new language.
when I don't have a calculator on hand, which is extremely rarely.
What do you sleep with one under your pillow or something? I'm sure you'll be doing lots of unit conversions using a calculator while driving at highway speeds.
I didn't say you said it. I said your logic...
Since you proved you couldn't follow your own logic I'll just keep presuming you can't follow mine. I'm well aware of what follows from the logic of my statements. And for the record, yes having a single language would be very helpful in a lot of ways - and tragic in others. But that is an irrelevant strawman since we are talking about numbers and measurements, not language. 95% of the worlds population already uses metric. If there were no advantage in it they would not have done it.
I somehow doubt you'll find many French people speaking primarily English in their normal lives.
You've never been to France have you? Plenty of folks in France speak English quite fluently and since 89% of schoolchildren in the EU learn English as a second language it's not hard for them to find folks to practice on.
There isn't any significant complication, that's what you're missing.
I'm not missing a thing. There only isn't a complication if you never leave or communicate with no one outside the US. Travel abroad someday and see if anyone shares your naive opinions.
There would be real complication if you try to cram the metric system down people's throats, as you try to force an entire nation of people to use units different from the ones they naturally think in.
So explain to me how 5.7 billion people outside the US managed to utilize metric daily and the 300 million here find it too difficult? Nobody is forcing the US to change and no one could anyway. But that doesn't mean that switching to metric isn't a good idea. Heck it's already been tried once - albeit in .
The advantages afforded by metric are extremely small, and the disadvantages in a conversion would be huge. Why, exactly, would any sane person want to convert?
You have that exactly backwards. The initial conversion costs while significant are trivial compared to the long term savings.
Ease of conversion? Are you kidding?
Not a bit.
It's no easier to convert in either system...
If you want to believe that dividing by some arbitrary conversion factor is easier than moving a decimal you just go right ahead believing your delusions. By your own arguments it's the same difficulty with a calculator and metric is easier without one. QED metric is easier overall. You should be disappearing in a poof of logic right now.
Ease of communication doesn't cut it, either.
Riiiiiight. Because unit conversion mistakes never occur and it's MUCH easier to do unit conversions than to just use the same measurement system everywhere.
Even ignoring social issues There is a measurable economic cost to using multiple measurement systems. It adds unneeded complexity to business, engineering and scientific endeavors especially those that cross international boundaries.
By your logic, we should all be using the same language...
I don't recall ever saying that and I would have said that if that is what I meant. However, English has become the de-facto language of international commerce and scientific discourse if you want to get picky about it. No need to "curse the heathens" since 95% of the world seems to realize that a common measurement system is a useful thing.
Besides imperial units these days are defined against metric units. An inch is explicitly defined as 2.54 centimeters. So you're using metric whether you realize it or not. Why not just cut out the complication and use the real thing?
60 Hot bath
If you can get in a 60C/140F bath you are either one tough or one scalded individual.
12 being evenly divisible by 2,3, and 4 is
quite convenient in some domains, particulary
construction.
As is 10 being divisible by 2 and 5. What's your point? Somehow 95% of the worlds population seems to build buildings just fine using the metric system. Yes there are some corner cases where non-metric units are advantageous but these are rare and industries which need them are in not prohibited from using a different measurement system when appropriate.
you MUST use the US Dollar and MUST know ALL the following language...
Must? No. Just like you don't HAVE to use metric. It just makes things easier and more standard.
Actually you can do pretty darn well with just dollars and English. I know because I've done it myself all over the world. English is the primary language of commerce these days and is also the primary language used for scientific discourse. A lot of commodities (notably oil) are denominated in units of dollars regardless of country of origin.
are you going to be the one to pay for all of the gas pumps to switch over from gallons to liters
Along with all the other taxpayers? Of course I am. I'll be happy to do it too.
I am comfortable in both systems,
So you are just like most of the people reading this, myself included? Good for you.
and as necessary I will calculate conversions between them. Why the big fuss over 50 year old data?
You didn't hear me making a fuss over it. I did however reply to someone whining about how metric has no advantages which is 95% of the worlds population seems to disagree with.
Stop being a cry-baby.
We're all really impressed with your unit conversion prowess. I bet you pick up all the girls by showing off how you know metric AND imperial units.
You are right.
I know. Thank you.
Since the global economy is already using a common language and common currency, it makes perfect sense to use common units.
By that you of course mean the most important reserve currency and the world languages. Nice to know you support my assertion.
I'd prefer that we used a hexadecimal system.
And how do you propose we convince every non computer geek in the world that this is a good idea? Further are you going to pay for the math classes virtually everyone will need?
Your idea fails the mom test miserably...
There is nothing inherently superior about the metric system.
Sure there is. Ease of unit conversion and ease of communication with the REST OF THE FREAKING WORLD. We live in a global economy - we should start acting like it.
Why does dividing by 10 matter so much, anyway? Because you have 10 fingers?
Because we use a base 10 counting system for most calculations. Having a measurement system that is highly compatible with the numeral system most humans use makes sense.
Really, we should be trying to move to a system of measure that is base 2.
Really? Go ahead and tell your mother you came 1011 miles to see her - I'm sure she'll be impressed.
People in the antique business usually know when they're holding an actual piece of Tiffany silver work in their hands.
That's the big difference right there. EBay never holds the item so there really is no way they can reasonably tell if an item is a fake. The only real way is to actually inspect the item AND have a paper trail to help authenticate its origin. That's what they do in the art world for valuable paintings. EBay is looking for plausible deniability when they know damn good and well they aren't doing the one thing that actually can ensure authenticity reliably.
Interesting that I got the flamebait mod on the last post though :) I thought I was clear that I was not insulting you at all, just that it relied too heavily on honesty in Wall Street, which I think is pretty scarce lately :D
No offense taken on my part. I thought the flamebait mod was way out of line as well. You were just stating a reasonable opinion and I thought you were pretty clear about your intentions.
Ebay's growth doesn't have to be by squeezing the sellers.
Exactly my point. EBay would do a lot better in the long run if they treated their sellers like genuine partners instead of cows to be milked. They cannot and should not try to please everyone but their solution to increasing profits so far has just been to raise prices on sellers and frankly they're just about at the point they cannot do that much more.
For example, they bought Skype and they could do something with it to grow their company.
Skype to my mind is the most retarded thing eBay has done to date. It has zero fit with their current business model or with their skill set. It's probably the clearest signal that the eBay management is seriously lacking in talent or discipline. Of course that's why they had a $1.4 billion write down on their purchase of Skype.
The only used books I bought in the last decade or so have been from Amazon, not eBay.
Likewise. EBay is a terrible marketplace for book sales - even the unusual or rare. Amazon on the other hand is pretty good most of the time. My only real quibble with selling through Amazon is that they force sellers to use non-traceable shipping methods such as USPS Media Mail which just invites fraud. Otherwise Amazon is a pretty decent way to sell books and unopened CDs/DVDs.
I am not insulting you or flaming you either. Those bastards LIE. LIE, LIE, and LIE some more. It's always worse than what they are telling you, and I am sure some pretty fancy "Arthur Anderson" type accounting can hide how many users they have lost.
Again, nothing surprising to me here since professionally I'm a degreed industrial engineer and a certified accountant. When I'm not trying to be an entrepreneur I'm in the business of operations consulting so I need to know every sort of problem I'll run into including cooked books. I know all about the games that can be played with the numbers as well as the operations.
If you want the the short version of my opinion on eBay's prospects, I think eBay is on the verge of some serious problems but they aren't there yet. It's sort of like Microsoft in a way. Few people really love them but they haven't quite pissed everyone off enough to really torpedo their business. I think the biggest threat to them actually is litigation from luxury goods makers. That has the potential to drastically increase their costs and open the door to other marketplaces. But I don't expect anything in the near future. I expect eBay to remain a cash cow for the next several years at least.
But hey, here's to hoping eBay goes down like the Titanic...
Isn't that what name recognition is?
Nope. What eBay has is the largest marketplace with the greatest network effects. Don't get me wrong, their brand is very very important to the equation. They aren't completely separable issues but I submit that name recognition is not the underlying driver of their success. You can have great name recognition without being a successful business.
As soon as another company comes along that offers anything close to eBay I will give them a shot. I doubt that I am alone.
You aren't alone but I think we are both going to be waiting quite a while. EBay for better or worse is going to be very hard to displace.
No, I don't think it is a big assumption at all. I think you underestimate just how pissed off people are, both buyers and sellers alike.
Underestimate? I have over 10,000 feedbacks and sold literally millions of dollars of merchandise through eBay. I no longer sell anything through eBay because eBay policies ended up costing me tens of thousands of dollars.
EBay basically made it impossible to do business with them and choked the life out of a company I worked very hard to build. You think I don't understand how pissed off people are? I understand better than almost anyone you'll ever meet.
eBay is losing both buyers and sellers at a pretty fantastic rate.
Really? You know that for sure? Because there is almost no financial data I can find to support that hypothesis.
volume sellers don't cost them any less per transaction than the average joe.
Why the need for a volume discount?
You have to understand fixed costs versus variable costs. Most of eBay's costs are fixed meaning they do not change for better or worse regardless of the number of transactions. EBay has to (in the short run) pay their staff salaries and the electric bill regardless of how many items are sold on eBay. However this means that eBay's unit cost DECREASES with each additional unit sold.
EBay so far has taken the approach to increase unit prices instead of decreasing unit costs. Both increase contribution margin but you can only increase either one to a point. eBay has raised rates about as far as they can so the only alternative is to increase volume which requires incentives for sellers to sell more. This is where volume discounts come into play. EBay basically trades some of their savings from the reduced unit costs in the form of incentives to sellers to sell more stuff. That's how every large retailer on the planet makes a profit.
I am buying moreand more from Amazon.com than Ebay lately.
Depends on what you are buying. For books, CDs, DVDs and new electronics, Amazon is a better place to buy usually. You have to remember that eBay is primarily a secondary market You don't go to eBay to buy new stuff or if you do you should not expect unusually low prices. For used or old stuff, you can frequently get prices on eBay around 1/3 to 1/2 of retail - in other words wholesale/liquidation pricing.
I've noticed recently that ebay has become rather expensive with lots of dumb bidders bidding things up past a sane price
Odds are those aren't "dumb" bidders but rather shill bidders. Against eBay's rules but it happens all the time.
If Amazon stopped selling books entirely, or IBM abandoned their mainframe business, then their shareholders would be up in arms, and rightly so.
Shareholders care about FUTURE free cash flow. If there is a good business case for exiting those businesses then the shareholders will be fine with it. General Electric is looking to sell off their lighting and appliance divisions right now. Why? Those divisions can no longer provide the demanded return on capital.
The IBM and Amazon examples don't really work here:
You are missing the point. The point is that companies often exit businesses that they were successful in. Even if they keep them they become a much smaller piece of the pie. I can come up with other examples if you like. How about Nintendo which started as a card company? Or 3M which originally sold corundum for grinding wheels? The point is that lots of businesses exit particular marketplaces all the time.
Many of the hard-core ebay whiners on its website are practically BEGGING google to open up an auction site, mostly because it will have practically millions as a buyer base overnight.
Google doesn't want the liability. If anything kills eBay it's going to be getting sued by every luxury good maker on the planet. EBay claims they want to ensure authentic goods but is unwilling to take the steps needed to ensure authenticity - namely physical inspection of items and their paper trail. Such physical inspection is completely outside Google's business model so they would be in the same boat eBay is liability-wise.
All that of course assumes Google could take marketshare from eBay where Amazon and Yahoo failed. That's a BIG assumption.
I know several people who used to do a lot of business on Ebay who are rapidly becoming disgusted with it because of its clear preference for giant sellers over individuals; I'm not at all surprised to hear that this is a general trend.
The only sellers that should be disgusted are ones with their head in the sand. EBay's costs mostly fixed so they grow through volume. You get volume through larger customers who can provide that volume. Economic inevitability.
EVERY non-regulated company I'm aware of besides eBay provides volume discounts in some fashion for larger customers. I was an individual seller as well as a high volume power seller. One of the (many) reasons I no longer sell through eBay is precisely BECAUSE they provided no incentive for me to bring additional business to them. They kept raising rates instead of providing incentives to bring additional volume. Basically they priced me (and lots of others) out of their marketplace. It was too expensive as an individual or a business to continue to sell on eBay.
but why are they abandoning the business that made them successful in the first place?
The short answer is that they decided a long time ago to become a publicly traded company and the growth demands of being public is the deal with the devil you make to get equity funding. That's why companies don't really want to go public unless the owners are either cashing out (private equity) or they have no other choice. Had eBay remained a privately held company they could have chosen to stay their present size.
Businesses out grow their original business model all the time. Some businesses simply do not scale beyond a certain point. Amazon started as an online bookseller that had no warehouses of their own. That only scaled to a point. IBM got out of the personal computer business not long ago. That particular niche of the industry just didn't hold enough growth/profit potential for them anymore and was more of a distraction than an asset. When you are a publicly traded company shareholders demand growth and eBay has hit a wall with being the world's premier online flea market.
Ebay has name recognition. That's all...
Sadly that is not all eBay has. EBay has network effects working for it which makes it VERY hard to displace them no matter how much money and talent is thrown at the problem. Buyers go where the sellers are and vice versa. Amazon and Yahoo both tried to take market share from eBay and both failed miserably. There are lots of other auction and e-commerce sites out there but none of them are likely to displace eBay anytime soon.
That's not to say eBay won't cut their own throat (they might) but that's pretty much what it will take to make a real dent in eBay's market share. Ebay's business tends towards a natural monopoly as do many marketplaces.