Ebay has followed the road of YouTube: it is no longer interested in curating as an outlet for unofficial, and in a sense artisanal small sellers, just as YouTube has eschewed the love of small content creators.
In my short time that I have been on eBay, I have been outright scammed twice, the first time as a seller by a vanishing ghost buyer, who eBay ißued him a refund on a contrived 'Item Not as Described' case, without making him return the item. The other time, I was scammed as a buyer of a super-seller, who sent the wrong size (by the tag!) from that which I had selected. They allowed me to return it, which I did three days after it arrived, and ten days later they turned-tail and opened a Item not Returned case, even though the Post Office tracking showed that it had delivered, which we provided to the seller. Super-sellers, I have learned from experience, utilise a weapon called the 'deafneß treatment'; if they don't hear back from you (read: purposely ignore, and do not respond to any of your meßages) then it might as well have been like you never said anything! Talking to a deaf person, we should say. Needleß to say, our tracking number conveniently fell on blind eyes and deaf ears, both of eBay and the seller.
In the Google aera of YouTube a similar trend appears to have arisen, with advertisers and companies for buyers, and mega-channels and their corporate counter-parts for super-sellers. Being a regular, traditional-form content creator is nearly as shitty these days as being a non-super, honest, traditional seller on eBay.
I had heard both sides complaints on eBay ever since I became a seller two or three years ago, and even before the Adpocalypse arrived onto YouTube I knew that many small creators were unhappy about the state of affairs on the platform, and that YouTube/Google was quickly beginning to abolish the free realm that the platform had been. For some reason, however, I never quite connected the similarities of these two parallel proceßes of 'conglomerisation'. Perhaps this is because I have never been a content creator, and so am not involved to the neceßary extent as I was in eBay selling to construe the connexion.
I also think that one difference betwixt content creators on YouTube, and small sellers on eBay may be much responsible for the dis-connect. On YouTube, as far as I have seen, one can easily opt to make videos in peace by never making any sort of response video. For eBay sellers, it is only a matter of time before you get a rude meßage from another seller berating you for too high or low of a price on your own listings, or calling you insults because your listing is a 'knock-off', despite how much proof you may provide them to the contrary. From my experience, the seller is either trying to influence your price for their own gain, or, more confusingly, some sellers seem to attack out of uncontrolled, randomly-placed anger. The latter reasoned meßages I have received tend to be more on the 'strange' side of things, whether indicative of mental illneß or someone using the anonymity of the internetwork to relieve their life frustrations. I have concluded that the only thing eBay sellers hate more than buyers and eBay itself are other eBay sellers.
As an end to this, I would only say that I am glad to be selling on that anger-filled electronic dung bay no more. The constant streß that accompanied almost every listing and sale really does wear one down and dampen their spirits. The guaranteed amount of hostile and/or rude interactions, especially in the face of eBay not being nearly as lucrative anymore, has made the scales of tip against the side of reward. If I were you, and was only looking into eBay to sell a few small items, I would simply go to a small local shop around me for an exchange. Notice: SMALL SHOPS. Do not exchange your books at Price Scam Bo... excuse me, 'Half Price Books', they gave me sixteen dollars for two containers of eighty books, many of them new philosophy ones that I could have otherwise kept for my personal library. Do not make the same mistake as me; do better, my fellow readers.
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