YES! That's an excellent point too -- though I think this is where legacy retailers really lost out because I know my mom for example, was more comfortable givi

YES! That's an excellent point too -- though I think this is where legacy retailers really lost out because I know my mom for example, was more comfortable giving her credit card to a known brand than some random website. My first order from Amazon was in 1997, when I was 14, and I did it using a gift card I got as a holiday gift from GeoCities (as thanks for being free tech support -- this truly is the most 1990s story ever), because my mom wouldn't hand over her credit card and I didn't get a Visa check card until I was 16. In 1996, Mom had been screwed over by phone reps for CompuServe's attempt at a true ISP stealing her credit card to order shit from Tiger Direct (told you this was a 1990s story) and was leery about anything online for years after that (and Tiger Direct was technically a mail-order catalog but it had a website). But you're right that eBay and Amazon were two of the earliest trusted, in part because they were the two biggest/first to market. (And also, both proved themselves to be trustworthy, which was important in the age of fly-by-night e-tailers). The same is true for PayPal.