Did EBay create 1M jobs? This is pretty difficult to determine, if you want net jobs created, not merely people who currently make a living selling via eBay. F

Did EBay create 1M jobs? This is pretty difficult to determine, if you want net jobs created, not merely people who currently make a living selling via eBay. For example, when a consignment store closes and that business moves to eBay, those are jobs shifting from one location to another, not really net-created jobs. Figuring out how to net that out is pretty complex, and I'm not sure solid enough data is available to determine to what portion of eBay's business are new transactions, versus existing merchants shifting sales channels. This is perhaps even more clear with Amazon Marketplace, which has a number of booksellers making a living selling used books full-time there, but probably a number actually amounting to fewer employees than have been displaced by the same Amazon's impact on brick-and-mortar used book stores. Many of the full-time sellers are even direct continuations of such used-book stores, which have laid off most of their staff and "gone virtual", transitioning from meatspace to online storefronts. (This isn't to say that Amazon Marketplace doesn't produce other advantages, but creating net new jobs in the used-book sector is probably not one of them.)