Home-Built Computer

I have often made mention of the fact of how old I am, so it should come as no surprise to you when I say that, yes, I remember when eBay first started in 1995.  Even starting out as it did, it was a pretty fancy site for the times, meaning they had some talent working for them.  And back then, there wasn’t anything like PayPal available to help finish the transactions.  Instead, all they had to work with were checks, money orders, and - if there was a lack of trust between the buyer and seller - an escrow account.  If a seller had a merchant account, he could even accept credit cards, but it wasn’t an easy process.

Then there was the rating system.  A seller could rank a winning bidder one to five stars based on how smoothly he completed the transaction.  A buyer could also rank the seller one to five stars based on how quickly he completed the transaction and the honesty of his auction listing.  This rating system let buyers determine if the seller they were about to do business with was reputable or not, and it let the seller know if the person bidding on his auction was honest or would eventually try to rip him off (in which case the seller would reject the bidder’s bid).

Word of this site spread and more people started to join out of curiosity.  They would try it out by taking something they were about to sell at a yard sale and put it up for auction on eBay.  Suddenly, that Tommy Dorsey record they were pricing at a quarter sold for $14.73 and Grandma’s wooden rocking chair that was slated for $5.00 was being bought for $127.  Stories would about with such transactions and it wasn’t long before would become the modern day gold rush.  People were now scouring the attics, basements, and garages for those unlikely treasures that would sell on eBay.  Collectors would scour eBay looking for those treasures that, hopefully, no one else knew about so they could snag it at a low price.  eBay was single handedly making yard sales and flea markets a thing of the past as well as putting the excitement of an auction house right at your fingertips.  And this auction house serviced more than just the local community; people were selling to the world!

Now, small businesses were starting to join the fray of users of eBay.  What once went to the Clearance bins and boxes was now going up for auction and even some of the stores regular items were being sold for a fix price.  Now businesses were able to realize the benefits of e-commerce without having to spend a lot of money to develop their own website.

As eBay’s popularity grew, they enhanced their offerings to the end user.  And when they purchased the online banking system PayPal and incorporated into the eBay site their user base grew dramatically.  Now everyone had an easy way to exchange money and conclude transactions.  It also gave some sellers the ability to accept major credit cards without having to spend a fortune on a merchant account.

The Huns are Storming the Walls

But like anything that becomes successful on the Internet, it’s bound to draw its share of detractors - haters, con men, and thieves who want to take advantage of the loopholes and flaws of the system to either hurt the site or to make a quick buck without any regards for who got hurt along the way.

The first were the haters who used the feedback system against eBay customers.  In the early days, the feedback system was not limited to transaction.  Anyone could leave positive or negative feedbacks as they saw fit.  And haters saw fit to leave negative feedback.  While feedback could only affect a user’s rating only once (10 negative feedback from the same person would only drop the rating by 1 point), haters would rove in packs, target certain users, and engage in coordinated attacks that would drive a user’s ratings down.  eBay solved this problem by limiting feedback to transactions, but the haters went to setting up their own account, bid on something, not complete the transaction, and then leave negative feedback.  Sure, the seller could also leave retaliatory negative feedback, but the haters were concerned about their ratings, only destroying the ratings of others.

Then there are the con men - the ones who use eBay to make a quick buck any way they can.  You’ve heard about the grilled chese sandwich with the image of the Virgin Mary that sold on eBay for $28,000 or the walking cane with Grandpa’s ghost that went for $65,000 on eBay?  Well, so have these guys and they want some of that action.  Some scour the auctions looking for ones that seem to be doing well and try to emulate them either using the same item or a different item but similar tactic.  Then you have the ones that zero in on high-ticket, desirable items like electronics or jewelry.  These are usually costume jewelry dressed up to look more expensive than they are.  Some will put up an auction with a title like New Playstation 3 - BOXand what you end up getting as a winning bidder is the box that the seller’s Playstation # came in - nothing else.  There’s also the case where a person was advertising high-end cell phone, but hidden in the ad in small type was the fact that all the buyer would be getting were pictures of the cell phones.  This case went before Judge Judy but it wasn’t the only case of scamming that went before the judge.  Scammer also came up with some new techniques for separating people from their money.  These were known as mystery box auctions and mystery envelop auctions.  They way it worked was that you were bidding on a box or purchasing an envelope and nothing else.  The auction claimed that anything inside the box or envelope was a gift from the seller to the buyer.  But these were usually scams in the way they were ran, because the “gifts” were seldom worth more than the money that was paid for them.

Then there was feedback selling.  They weren’t stated as such but that’s what they were.  Typically, you would be buying something for a penny (like an e-book or maybe a drink recipe that could be e-mailed to you).  The seller sends you the item as well as positive feedback.  Is your feedback score a little low or even negative?  Then this is a great way to prop it up.

Finally, there were the thieves.  These were the ones who would put up an auction, get a winning bidder, take their money, and not ship anything.  Depending on how ambitious they were determined how “big” of an item they would try to sell.  Once they got too much negative feedback, they’d simply close down the account, open a new one, and start all over again.

Greed Takes Over

At first, eBay tried to counter all of these problems to try and keep the honest user happy, but over time greed started to settled in to the company’s thinking.  After all, a lot of what was going on was happening through user accounts.  Auctions that went up meant money in eBay’s coffers.  So, while what was going on may have been questionable, it was bringing in money.  At this point, it became obvious that as long as there were no major complaints going on, eBay was willing to look the other way.  As part of this trend, eBay removed any references to their phone numbers, only allowing users to contact them by e-mail.  This was a sure-fire way to keep any eBay employees from having to answer questions directly.  E-mails easily desensitized the nature of the complaint, plus it was all too easy for some of those e-mails to become “lost”.

But eBay wasn’t happy with the mere pitance they were receiving from their auctions.  They wanted more.  They tried to develop their own online payment system to be used on eBay but it turned out to be a dud, while a competitor - PayPal - was becoming very successful at what they did.  Any they were making money from eBay’s site.  This had to end.

So, eBay bought out PayPal.  And while talking to anyone from either company would have you believe that they were separate entities, it was all to clear that PayPal was a slave to the master eBay.  PayPal would make changes to their terms of service at eBay’s whim.  And those changes would always mean a increase in profits for eBay.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, in comes John Donahoe (CEO of eBay) and Lorrie Norrington (President of eBay Marketplace).  Donahoe has already shown a disdain for eBay by calling it a glorified flea market and its sellers a nuisance.  The two of them combined then started to rape the company through their various changes.  First came the changing of the Auction Insertion Fee (AIF) and the Final Value Fees (FVF).  Their claim was that they restructured the fees so that sellers who didn’t have a successful sale would no longer be charged as much as they had in the past by lowing the cost of inserting an auction into the process.  What they failed to mentioned that successful bidders would end up paying more because the FVF had been jacked up.  Not only that, but the once-simple FVF system and been complicated so that more popular items sold on eBay would require a higher FVF.

Next came the rating system.  Where once sellers could keep buyers in check by leaving negative feedback in retaliation for negative feedback they received, eBay no made it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback to buyers regardless of the reason.  Now the floodgates had been opened for buyers to abuse sellers and to get away from it scott free.

Then came the restrictions on the payment methods that were allowed on eBay.  No longer would eBay allow the use of checks or money orders to be used to close a deal.  Now you were restricted to having a merchant account or PayPal.  They also allowed the use of a system called ProPay as a way to skirt the claims of monopoly against them - since ProPay was a separate entity, unlike PayPal - but its success was lukewarm at best.

Their latest action seems to be geared at doing the most damage to sellers.  They now have to maintain a five-star rating or risk having their auctions closed down.  Heaven help the seller who manages to piss off a buyer.  I have seen some auctions literally beg buyers to contact them first to resolve any differences before leaving a negative feedback.  That’s right - sellers begging buyers to be kind to them.  That’s like having a convenience store and making a plea to all would-be robbers and thieves not to harm him because he doesn’t have a gun in the store to defend himself with.

All of these actions had made the sellers eBay’s whipping boys and had given absolute power to the buyers.  Regardless of Donahoe’s disdain for sellers and admiration to buyers, doesn’t he realize that without sellers you can’t have buyers?  Maybe he does.  Maybe there’s a reason for all this.  I’ve heard theories about that Donahoe is trying to drive away the small sellers, hoping to replace them with retail stores like Target and Wal-Mart and make eBay a merchant-centric site for brand name products at one place - sort of like an electronic mall.  But I point out that this is only theory, because no matter how mentally deficient Donahoe is, he has to realize that any national chain like Target and Wal-Mart will have their own e-commerce site and won’t need to pay money into eBay.  (At least, I hope he’s not that delusional.)

Former eBay sellers have already found that out.  Many who had built a business by selling on eBay have come to realize better profits by setting up their own e-commerce site.  The money they spent on insertion fees and FVF was several times more than what they were paying for a website of their own.  And more and more sellers are either following suite or just closing up shop altogether, frustrated with how they’re being treated by a company some have been with for a decade.

And just when you think the weirdness is over, eBay surprises you.  I believe that Donahoe views the buying and selling on eBay much like gambling.  He must see it as people paying out good money for something you may or may not get.  So he’s taken this concept one step further - he has licensed the eBay brand to IGT who are a major manufacturer of slot machines for casinos.  The result is the eBay Video Slot Machine.  It’s a bank of five slot machines that work as a group to provide both individual and combined play.  In short, it’s another way for eBay to separate you from your money.

Slitting of the Wrists

There are those who are all too willing to point out that eBay is alive and well and their stocks are climbing.  Maybe.  But I’d like to point out that the heart of a man who has just slit his wrist will continue to beat until all the blood has been pumped out.  While their stock is in the lower 20s as of this writing, their stock had fallen as low as $10 a share in February 2009 and this so-called rally is nothing more than eBay pumping up their own stocks by buying back its own shares.  Their shares were once at $58.17 a share back in December 2004 before starting their downward spiral,  This “rally” is weak and I believe that it will fall again as soon as the remain sellers realize just how bad of a deal they’re getting with eBay.  I believe that as the economy improves the remaining sellers will leave in droves and the last remaining drops of blood will pour out of eBay’s slit wrist.  Granted, they may make a last-minute decision that will try to save the company (namely the firing of Donahoe and Norrington and the reversing of all of their changes), but I don’t see that happening until the stocks fall to $5 or lower.

By that time, the damage will have been done, and eBay will never be the same.

Addendum

I have just learned recently that there is a class action lawsuit in play being handled by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.  You can also find the legal filing here.

In preparation for my upcoming reviews, I thought I would take a moment and give you a simple primer on how I’ll be doing reviews.

Grading System

While most reviews used a star system (5 stars, 10 stars, 3 1/2 stars, etc.) my plan is to use a grading system of the type that was used when I was in school.  The grades will cinsist of the standard A, B, C, and D with their plus and minus variations as well as the F with no variations.  (Afterall, you’ve failed; there’s no “good fail” or “bad fail”.)

Each grade will have a point value assigned to it, with A+ being 12, A equaling 11, A- is 11, and so on right down to D- being a 1 and F equaling a 0.

Grading of Features

If something that I’m reviewing is complex enough to have different features, each of those features will be examined and graded on its own.  The grade assigned to the feature will either be done as how well the feature performs compaired to other items with similar features or as a comparison of how well the feature actually works versus my expectation on how it should work.

Overall Grade

The item being reviewed will receive an overall grade in one of two ways.  The first is if the item is simple enough that it doesn’t have any “features” then it will be graded simply on its own, using the same method for grading features.  However, if there are features that are graded then the point values for each grade will be added together, divided by the number of grades given, and rounded to the nearest whole value, giving an average score and a grade value. 

No Influences

Grades given are based on my expectations only and aren’t “bought” by the manufacturer.  While I will accept items from companies for me to review, this will not influence the end grade.  Any item up for review will receive good marks based on its own merits or bad marks based on its lack of merits.  But most items that will be reviewed will probably be items that were purchased by me.

Let me start off this blog by stating just how old I am:
• I can remember when magnetic drums were a recording medium in mainframe computers.
• I remember—and have coded in—Hollerith code.
• I remember—and have met—Commodore Grace Hopper.
• When I learned computer programming in high school, it was in COBOL.
Needless to say I’ve just proven myself to be older than dirt (or at least as old as vacuum tubes—Google it). And because of that, it’s safe to say that I was around when the personal computer hit the market, followed by the portable computer as well as the introduction of the cellular phones to the consumer market.

The portable computer and the early cell phones were not the easiest things to carry about. The early portable computers were the size of a small suit case, weighed about 20-30 pounds, ran entirely off of 5.25” floppy disks and had a monitor screen about 7-8 inches in diameter. Cell phones weren’t any better. They were large, boxy things with a rubber ducky antenna that reminded me of the walkie-talkies they used in World War II. They would later become known as “bricks” because they almost resembled a brick in size, shape, and weight. Forget about putting them in your pocket; if you didn’t have a purse or briefcase to put them in, you had to carry them.

Over the years, as electronic components became smaller and faster, the portable computer and cell phone became smaller, lighter, and more powerful. Portable computers earned the nickname “notebook computers” because they were roughly the size of a three-ring binder. An entire phone now fit into a unit about half the size of a receiver of the old-time phone sets. But no matter how much smaller and lighter the devices came, critics would always complain that they were still “too heavy”.

So, manufacturers continued to improve their designs, making them smaller, faster and lighter. And along the way, the line between what was a phone and what was computer began to blur. To this end, we got computers that could fit in the palm of your hand and phones that are small enough to clip to your ear. And still, the critics cried, “Too heavy!” The absurdity of this came about when I read a review of the BlackBerry® Storm which, coming in at all of six ounces, was described as being “a bit chunky”. (Look for my review coming in the future.)

Really? Do you actually have that much trouble lifting your six-ounce cell phone to your ear? Tell me, how do you manage to lift that twelve-ounce can of Bud to your lips?

Society has become obsessed with weight not only in themselves but also in their devices. And there seems to be no end to this downward spiral. Devices today that are praised as being of the perfect weight will become way too heavy a few years from now. And what of the devices themselves? What will happen to them? Currently, we have the MacBook® Air, the thinnest and lightest full-size notebook computer around, but this thing looks so fragile that it could be crushed just by looking as it wrong. I’ve also heard of it getting lost in a stack of papers and being accidentally picked up.

I wouldn’t be surprised if technology kept on shrinking the devices until they became implantable in the human body. Of course, I would be even less surprised if the next generation of reviews came from Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, all complaining that the devices are still “too heavy”.

I would like to take this time to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and that you have a chance to spend the day with family and friends.

Some of you who have been coming to Home-Built Computer may notice a change.  In short, site has been overhauled, giving it a new start.  The old posts have been dropped so that the site can start anew.  Why?  The site had lost its focus and was starting to wander off on tangents.  I wanted to reign it back in and put it on course and, at the same tiem, clean house.  There were an awful lot of deadbeat users who were using this site as a springboard for their spamming.  We had a slew of members, but no real “users.”

It was the same with the forum … actually, it was worse.  The kinds of messages that were being left behind were not the kind I wanted or would put up with any longer.  So, the forum has been stripped down and a new one will go back up and be strictly maintained.

We’ll also be adding a store to the site where you can purchase components to upgrade you computer or build one of your own design.

What else do we have in store?  Well, that’ll be up to you.  I think my first fault is that I tried to be too anal-rententive in the design of the site and I would like to get the community more involved.  So, if you have any input, pass them along.  I would like to hear about them.

In the meantime, keep coming back to see what new changes we make to this site.