William Gibson:
eBay is apparently doing everything it can to discourage the kind of auction-based digital flea market it so gloriously was in its beginning. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to use, that way, and many buyers and sellers of wondrous fifth-hand hyper-specialist gomi are getting very discouraged. A market is being created, thereby, for a purpose-built all-gomi auction site, optimized for people who want (nay, need) to buy and sell, say, anonymously designed 20th-century American workwear, one piece at a time. Or, really, whatever. Used. Gomi. Junk. Clinically otaku-searchable, no fuzzy logic messing with your carefully refined strings. Micro-transactions. For dropshipping of boring new merch, there’ll always be eBay.
The business model, basically, would be what eBay was about eight years ago.
See Also: Gibsons’ obsession with eBay
March 16, 2009 at 4:59 am
I like this idea quite a bit. I often find myself having to dig through large numbers of clone listings just to reach those few more obscure items really worth buying.