This is an interesting goal, but we know the outcome. The local politicians, already drunk beyond belief on the property tax revenue stream, will simply find another way to satiate their thirst and simply tax out the same revenue stream from everyone via some other tax.
So in the end, you won't pay $3,000 [1] per year in property taxes, but you'll still be out $3,000 per year in other taxes elsewhere.
[1] that figure was quoted in the article for one person who was interviewed
What went wrong was Google (the old 'do no evil' Google) bought the ad network DoubleClick. The acquired DoubleClick side then took over old Google from the inside out such that what we have today is Doubleclick calling itself "google", no more 'do no evil' old Google anywhere, and all the evil that exists on the advertising side infesting everything they do.
WSJ 'gift links' often do not actually work. I don't know whether they have a "usage count" or a 'good for x time' expiration, but more often than not they don't work (beyond "gifting" a paywall).
It does, but unless the 'zip' archive creator being used makes use of the extensions for high resolution timestamps, the basic ZIP format retains only old MSDOS style timestamps (rounded to the closed two seconds). So one may lose some precision in ones timestamps when passing files through a zip archive.
But, ads directly correspond to revenue stream, and a loss of ad "impressions" would result in a reduced revenue stream, so a "protect the advertising" response is not at all unusual to consider as a portion of their (eBay's) reasoning for this ban.
Given how hard they push sellers to purchase their "extra cost listing enhancements" (i.e., purchase to have your listings show in the "advertisement" spots) it appears that they may make a decent revenue stream from these advertising angles. An AI-agent could find listings without going through the advertising displays and as such cut into this revenue stream.
An AI-Agent browsing eBay for a "widget" for a given individual will also likely not be browsing eBay's advertising listings (sponsored and promoted listings [1]) which would potentially equate to a loss in ad revenue for eBay. So there is likely a "protect the advertising moat" aspect to their "ban" as well.
[1] Given how hard eBay pushes sellers to purchase the sponsored and promoted listing tiers (at an additional fee of course) implies they make some nice revenue stream from these advertisements.
And, at least in the US, eBay charges their "final value fee" percentage on the order total (the sale price plus the shipping price paid by the buyer). So if the item has a 3% final value fee (the percentages differ across different categories of listings) then Ebay got $0.44 of additional fee from your $14.65 of shipping you paid to the shipping service. And there is no option to obtain a rebate on actual shipping paid, even if one purchases the shipping label from eBay themselves.
I suspect they (eBay) do this to avoid folks listing items for $1.00 with $194.00 shipping to avoid paying eBay any fees.
From what I've seen discussed, it seems some percentage of "sniping" is to attempt to obtain both "winning bid" and "lowest possible price" (note, not the same as "max willing to pay for the same item"). The sniper is trying to hide interest, so as not to attract other interested bidders, and therefore grab "a great deal" of a small increment above the starting bid price.
And this probably appears to work enough times in the snipers favor to trick them into thinking it is a winning strategy, whereas they likely would have won the same auctions in the end by just bidding that 'minimum' as their maximum bid. But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy, they get no feedback that sniping isn't really helping them like they think it is helping them.
> But as they can't easily (i.e., without expense) A/B test their strategy
There also isn't really any detriment. At worst, the sniper is making the same bid they would have made otherwise. If the opposing bidders are not purely rational, and have not put in their actual maximum bid, then sniping can deprive them of that opportunity and thus lowers the hammer price.
And bidders are not purely rational, especially when the items are not purely utilitarian. Getting notifications that you have been outbid has an emotional effect, as does having time to think about raising the bid.
they notify the bidder when they're outbid, and the incremental price increases can make it tempting for someone to adjust their idea of their max price. sniping deprives them of that opportunity.
This is most likely the reason. I could see a lot of "buy for me bot" users deciding that they really did not mean that color shirt (or some other reason) when they asked it to buy a "brand X shirt in size Y" and forgot to tell the bot what colors they would accept as options and did not realize the bot might buy an "electric purple" (or some other color they dislike) shirt because it was not constrained in color choice.
Auto bid does not hide any information even with one bidder, as ebay indicates that "1 bid" has occurred.
The only way auto-bid could hide information is if eBay treated auto bid as "silent auction" style. Show "zero bids" all the way to the end, then once closed, see which 'auto-bid' came in highest and declare that bidder the winner.
Sniping is attempting to recreate 'silent auction' style bidding, with a bid system that is not 'silent'.
So in the end, you won't pay $3,000 [1] per year in property taxes, but you'll still be out $3,000 per year in other taxes elsewhere.
[1] that figure was quoted in the article for one person who was interviewed
reply