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The untold origin story of eBay that I lived (2018)
- jt2190 7y agoActual (and better, IMHO,) title: > The untold origin story of eBay that I lived...
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago> In 1995 the ebola virus had its second major outbreak, 19 years from its first, and I discovered a fascinating website about it called eBay. I think the original title is much more interesting and also correct.
- dang 7y agoWe've reverted the title. Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Submitted title was "The untold origin story of eBay and Ebola that I lived...")
- blahyawnblah 7y agoI thought the guy built it for his wife to sell pez dispensers? I seem to remember hearing that 20 years ago.
- cmacaskill 7y agoHahaha, that story really caught on but Pierre confessed it was made up for the purpose of getting people to relate to eBay. Netflix's story about late fees was same.
- sireat 7y agoI was a tiny tiny competitor to eBay some 20 years ago and the pez story was pure BS. The reality is that eBay (that is AuctionWeb) got its initial traction from spamming Usenet as the story correctly states. Very quickly they moved from spamming themselves to letting their users spam Usenet. This is the "growth hacking" model still followed today by many. The question is there any moral middle ground? If you can search Usenet archives you can find remnants of that AuctionWeb spam and people complaining. Soon others tried to copy them but it was too late. This was in mid 90s after the first mass spam from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie... .
- XaspR8d 7y agoBeing "born from spam" really explains a lot about how most eBay sellers communicate to this day.
- redis_mlc 7y agoNever seen that over the past 20 years (I have 3,000 feedback, so I would know.) However: - You can sign up for a store newsletter - in the past few months, ebay is sending auction time notifications, and pinging sellers to offer discounts to viewers. That's the only thing that has the spam smell, but the discount offers do help distinguish who wants to make a deal :)
- XaspR8d 7y agoTo be clear, I didn't really mean "spam proper", moreso the flea market / carnival barker language, eg "REAL 100% HD VIDEO BRAND-NEW CANON REBEL 5T QUICK SHIP WITH ORIGINAL LENS KIT", that often obstruct the info I'm actually searching for. I'm sure folks who use the platform consistently either know how to avoid that content or are much more efficient at sifting through it (or my anecdata of its frequency is way off!). I agree in my limited experience there isn't much in the way of "true spam" itself.
- gumby 7y agoCompanies typically make up their creation stores after the fact because a nice crisp story gives people something to hang onto. The reality is always much messier, more diffuse, and too much of a long story.
- rmason 7y agoThat story was invented by a PR agent to pitch eBay to the press.
- eternalban 7y agoAnd the press is not in the journalism business so no one bothered to ask around. Their job is to publish the PR apparently.
- GoRudy 7y ago"In 1995 the ebola virus had its second major outbreak, 19 years from its first, and I discovered a fascinating website about it called eBay. It turns out Pierre owned it and wrote the ebola information. The traffic it drew would help his new auction site get off the ground." wow. Seems relevant today.
- LowAmmunition 7y agoYeah... "Anyone truly afraid of the virus can use eBay to purchase a hazmat suit of their own." https://fortune.com/2014/10/16/ebay-started-as-a-website-about-ebola https://fortune.com/2014/10/16/ebay-started-as-a-website-abo...
- mapgrep 7y agoI thought that was a typo and that he meant “20 years before the second major outbreak...” But no, there was an Ebola outbreak in the mid 70s. Kind of scary to see a disease that can keep popping up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ebola_outbreaks
- vilen 7y agoI liked the original title of the story for what it is worth. As Chris MacAskill wrote: In 1995 the ebola virus had its second major outbreak, 19 years from its first, and I discovered a fascinating website about it called eBay. It turns out Pierre owned it and wrote the ebola information. The traffic it drew would help his new auction site get off the ground.
- jedberg 7y agoIt’s funny how Amazon feared eBay, and then failed to beat them — in 1999. But when I worked at eBay in 2003, they had the mailroom put a sticker on every amazon box that said “Next time get it on eBay!” And now the tide is swinging back a bit as people get fed up with fakes and commingling at Amazon. At least with eBay you know the product you’re getting is actually from the seller you bought it from.
- j88439h84 7y ago> they had the mailroom put a sticker on every amazon box you mean when eBay employees received a package from Amazon at the office?
- jedberg 7y agoYeah exactly.
- Goronmon 7y agoAt least with eBay you know the product you’re getting is actually from the seller you bought it from. Wait, how is this different with eBay compared to Amazon?
- rhizome 7y agoOn eBay, purchase and shipping is in the context of the seller, their name is prominent, etc. with a little eBay branding around the edges. Amazon's checkout process is 99.99% in the Amazon context, only showing a "sold by" on the order page itself in a 12px font. There is no mention of the seller at all in Amazon's order notification emails.
- magduf 7y agoOn Amazon, you don't know which seller's goods are being shipped to you, if it's "fulfilled by Amazon" or from Amazon directly. So if two sellers are selling the same item, with the same exact SKU, and both send their inventory to Amazon to be warehoused and shipped, Amazon will happily send you either seller's item, depending on which is more convenient to send. (Perhaps seller A's stuff is in a warehouse closer to you.) This sounds good in theory, because all those products are identical, right? What if seller B's products are all counterfeit? So you buy from seller A who you think is legit (and for the example is), but you get seller B's fake crap, and seller A was powerless to stop it.
- aluminussoma 7y agoeBay is a fascinating story for their early impact to the commercial internet. It is also fascinating to see how they've fared: it is still around but now it is being eaten up by competitors like Facebook Marketplace in the US, MercadoLibre in Latin America and others. PayPal is on a somewhat similar trajectory. The lesson here is to keep your customers happy or someone else will. Also found it interesting to read about the people and companies who thought eBay wouldn't work for various - good - reasons. You can always make something work!
- Scoundreller 7y agoeBay has a lot of attackers: You have FB Marketplace on the local C2C side. They own kijiji (annihilated CraigsList in Canada at least), but it probably cuts into their eBay revenue. Then you have Amazon on the B2C side. And Aliexpress doing their damage on the low-margin direct-from-Asia side.
- wolco 7y agoAliexpress increases ebay listings (and Amazon). Facebook Marketplace competes with kijiji/craigslist. Doesn't really compete with ebay. Amazon, Wallmart take brand name product sales. Ebay is left with what is rare. Ebay's problem is shipping.
- axlpress 7y agoWould you be to expand on why EBay’s problem is shipping?
- Scoundreller 7y agoMost people are stuck paying USPS rates. Amazon’s network of delivery crews is/will be cheaper. And ebay shippers can’t consolidate shipments. They’re stuck at many-to-many. Amazon is one-to-many.
- wolco 7y agoI think shipping is where vendors push price markups. One price like Amazon for shipping would change the game.
- toohotatopic 7y agoI still don't understand why eBay hasn't leveraged eBay, Skype and Paypal into something like WeChat.
- redis_mlc 7y agoMicrosoft bought Skype, and Paypal is independent now.
- toohotatopic 7y agoIndeed. Yet they had everything in their hands to create something big. With their accounts and profiles, they could even have become something like Facebook. I am fascinated by how many key technologies they had without those parts being integrated into something bigger than their sum.
- nullc 7y ago<3 portmasters
- nullc 7y agoI wish ebay wasn't so buggy. Mysterious failures, absent error messages-- both as a buyer and seller. Aliexpress has much better software in my experience. :(
- myself248 7y agoYeah, the shopping cart performance has gotten so slow lately, I've gone days without being able to complete checkout. Or some items would complete and others would still be sitting there, lather rinse repeat, and some simply vanish without actually being purchased. Some get purchased twice... If I were buying anything expensive, I'd care, but it's still better than Amazon for many things.
- redis_mlc 7y agoebay doesn't have those problems in California, aside from adding items to the watchlist sometimes. You might want to try: - using 8.8.8.8 for DNS - a different browser in case there's a plugin problem - traceroute - a different location in your city, like an Internet cafe
- nullc 7y agoI've experienced some those issues in California, though not quite as severely as it sounds the prior poster has experienced them. I've never had a doubled order, that I've noticed, but things silently disappearing the carts without being purchased at purchase time seems pretty common to me (and not due to items being sold out). It's been compounded by the sales that force use of the shopping cart when I otherwise might not use it (because the discount is one time).
- fit2rule 7y agoAmazing to see the picture of the BEST Internet server facility .. that was certainly a pivotal and interesting company in the history of the Valley. I worked there on contract a couple of times, got to know some of the folks - and it sure seems like it was a breeding ground of interesting Internet ideas. Matt Dillon, who has clearly proven his mettle in the time since, was developing his keen sense of social stewardship by keeping BEST's internet services up and running - I'll never forget the shock of discovering that they ran the entire thing on a database system Matt had developed himself... I wonder what other things came from that incubator. It was a wild scene, indeed.
- michaelwilson 7y agoSmugmug was also there around that time.
- windyfly 7y agoeBay has its chance. It should help build the tool for the community to provide customized service easier and cheaper. Marketplace is also based on the abundance and quality of contents (merchandise). Scale effect is good at the globalization period but not sure for the next era.
- windyfly 7y agoBut at this stage, I feel Shopify has better chance than eBay on branding... The long term value and potential scaling effect is still the mainstream before we live under universal basic income era.