You can argue that eBay’s only agreement is to provide a place to host your listngs… but that ignores the fact that eBay is no longer just a passive venue and is in fact becoming more and more ‘involved’ in it’s sellers businesses. When a ‘venue’ can dictate what you can or cannot list (when did the government pass that baton to eBay?), and then dictate what forms of payment you can accept (when did good old US dollars stop being “legal tender for all debts, public and private”?), and can, and DOES, dictate the amount of exposure to traffic that you receive (even tho you pay the same fees for this service as everyone else)… that’s no longer ‘just a venue’.

And are they really providing the services paid for? Perhaps it is eBay who are not taking responsibility for the future of their business, chasing the almight quarterly earnings rather than building a sound foundation for generations of growth. Or did that change with the advent of the Internet as well? I must be missing a whole lotta memos!

Overall – a great article, and much in line with my own thinking. I just think eBay needs to ‘fess up and admit that there’s too much ‘disruption’ and not enough ‘innovation’ going on these days.

All businesses need to change and adapt to remain viable. It’s a fact of life.

Many people who came to eBay did well from the start & were able to put their business on auto-pilot. They didn’t anticipate ever having to do things differently. But now that eBay has changed the rules, these individuals are finding they can no longer rely on ‘business as usual.’

Those who are pro-active will take destiny into their own hands & adjust to the ‘new’ eBay &/or expand to other sales channels.

Those who do not take responsibility for the future of their business will remain ‘stuck’ – reacting to eBay’s changes & spending unproductive time & energy complaining.