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Originally Posted by minusonebit
A friend of mine has been talking about an eBay alternative site for a while now, I wish he'd get his ass in gear and build it. Now is a great time for it to be put into place. The time is right for someone to come out with a good site that actually works and put eBay in its place.
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There are still plenty of ebay 'alternatives' out there and until/unless someone has HUGE funding and is happy to take a loss for a long while they will remain no threat - the same with any auction startups. You're friend is onto a loser before he starts.
Ebay is so big because it has so many sellers. It has so many sellers because it has so many buyers. It has so many buyers because.... etc. Sort of a reverse catch-22. Very, very few companies would have the expertise and funding to compete against that and drag any significant % of users away. Try finding stuff on any other auction site out there - it's usually a huge waste of time.
A shame because as with Paypal (same company I know) and Google they've become far too big, lazy, greedy and complacent but have such a huge market hold that toppling them will be very, very hard and won't happen anytime soon.