SUBAT

Hello!

The following message from a reporter at PC Magazine arrived at the SUBAT MySpace page, seeking background info. from sellers involved in the revolt against FeeBay. Everyone who can contact her (e-mail and phone at bottom of message) should, as media attention greatly helps our cause. If you can, please do mention the effort toward a free people’s WeBay — if word spreads far enough, we’re that much closer to getting the numbers needed to bring the WeBay into the world.

Thanks!!
Jul and Lily

==========
Mar 4, 2008 6:39 PM

Subject: Q from PC Magazine about eBay boycott

Body:
Hi there —

I’m a reporter with PC Magazine and we’ve been covering the eBay boycott story.

I wanted to touch base with some sellers who are participating in the boycott, and I have a few questions for you about your history with eBay and what comes next, if you don’t mind.

- How long have you been with eBay? Have you shut down your eBay operations, or are you just participating in the boycott hoping the situation on the site will change?
- What type of business do you run on eBay? Was this a full-time or part-time operation? Were you considered a power seller?
- How did the fee hikes implemented in 2006 affect your business?
- Is there any particular policy change that simply must be changed, in your opinion? Does the ability to leave negative feedback for buyers trump price listing fee changes, for example?
- Have you moved your business to any other auction sites? If so, which ones and how to do they compare to eBay?

Any insight you could provide on these questions would be great.

You can reach me on my work e-mail at chloe_albanesius@ziffdavis. com.

Thanks!
Chloe

Chloe Albanesius, News Reporter
PC Magazine
212-503-5286

EBayers UNITE, onward and upward!

Hey, I’m still here.

Been working on an aggregator using Yahoo Pipes. Not ideal, but it could get the job done. Here’s the Pipes homepage if you’re curious: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

Katrina: “Just who is going to run this and who is going to pay for it all.?”

Depends. If it can be totally automated, no one need run it. Just a few moderators would have access in case something needs to be tweaked or someone has an issue.

“I am primarily a buyer, but i do like to sell the odd item i no longer need. Where does it suggest i can benefit from this. What about the occasional seller.”

I’m an occasional seller too. You’d benefit by being involved in a true community, like Ebay was before it went IPO in 1998. You’d benefit by having options yet getting massive exposure via aggregation….if an auction site you utilize goes to crap, you can use another one in the network. Unlike Ebay, where you’re totally at the mercy of the CEO and the shareholders he/she is beholden to. You’d further benefit by not losing 10 – 20% of your sale to Ebay, who really do nothing other than hosting your images and data. I’ve sold things at consignment shops that walk away with less than Ebay does in some cases, and they do all the work for you. Ebay does pretty much nada for sellers, you do all the work when it comes down to it.

I don’t want to get into the politics of it all, autocracy, oligarchy, democracy, whatever. I would just quote Lincoln “A house divided cannot stand”.

Hi everyone, just some general news. The people at Pheebay are very kind and have offered to make a dedicated forum for search portal work so anyone who can help on portal issues, please get in touch with me or Julia (or use the subat_forever yahoo e-mail), to get word when it’s ready. Also, the PSU administrator is on vacation until April so that previous portal thread will likely continue at Pheebay. And just today I learned of a better URL-shortener created by Pheebay. Unlike tinyURL, this one allows the new URL to be tagged or named (a big help when you have trouble keeping track, as I often do!), by using the “advanced” button.

There is also a very good site which should be added to everyone’s list: http://www.accknowl.com/, if not on it already. They have archived news, a whole page of good resources, and a comprehensive list of the protest sites so far, including a couple of which I was unaware. (I believe we should make contact with a few newer ones, and soon.) Val, perhaps this list is the groundwork for the anti-Febay web ring idea?

Also just recently Google has announced the creation of Google for Non-Profits, which may be relevant, especially the Adwords part of Google Grants if the plan to form a 501©(3) goes ahead. It could be a while before SUBAT is ready for that, but something to start thinking about now.

Finally, I see someone didn’t like the Phase V “final victory” wording, which was my idea and for which I take responsibility. (Those old enough to remember the usual English translation of hasta la victoria siempre will recognize the basic idea here.) What is at issue is an open auction marketplace seen as a utility, a service to which everyone is equally entitled, envisioned eventually as a new area of the Internet. I don’t believe companies should charge fees as auction venues, and certainly not as a percentage of items sold, as eBay does. (Contrast this with the fixed monthly rates charges by some current alternatives; it’s not the only method.) Imagine if MySpace or YouTube tried to charge fees for user-provided content the way eBay does. Being a neutral venue should consist in being a neutral venue, not in bleeding the users who supply all the content simply because one can. I think of it as similar to toll roads, where people pay by the mile, verses public highways maintained by a department of transportation. Travel used to be very unpleasant in the United States before the advent of highways, largely because toll roads predominated and most were not just costly but poorly maintained. It’s in everyone’s interest to have the ‘roads’ of commerce be well-kept, free, and not under the control of toll-masters. Phase V is not a slight against the alternative non-eBay sites of the present, but a vision for a better tomorrow we can make, starting today. And I certainly don’t believe that “revolution breeds tyranny,” unless we believe that George Washington was a dictator. I would be happy if the SUBAT campaign for a WeBay is revolutionary because nothing short of that will be enough to undo not just the economic damage but the conceptual damage eBay, Inc. has done. That 2008 eBay Boycott – Not Just Noise website mentions a quote from Pierre Omidyar, that the primary aspect of eBay is the human side. The current management has made a such mockery of that original eBay concept that nothing less than a revolution can set things right. As ebay.com was collectively made by people power, so it will be remade by people power. With or without the nay-sayers, eventually we’ll win because, as Malcolm X used to say, “power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.”

Best,

Lily

Katrina, the questions you raised have been covered already both on the PSU site and, more especially, in the Phases links above on this campaign page. A people’s site is to be a public service, the final shape to be determined when numbers are great enough to allow voting by motions (an integral feature of the Point site) and referenda, including eventual open elections from among campaign membership. In this tipping point model of social action, everything is contingent on popular support, such that if there is not popular support, nothing ever happens. Anyone is also free to resign from a campaign at any time, or to make constructive suggestions in the comments section (e.g., as Lee did a couple of weeks ago in proposing the portal).

As to anarchy, communism, autocracy, and democracy, these terms have fairly precise political meanings and shouldn’t be thrown around loosely, as with “autocratic democracy,” which is in fact an oxymoron. If you want to move discussion forward I would suggest reading the drafts of the Phases and making specific suggestions for improvement there as that’s why they are posted, to elicit discussion on specifics, in order that we are all prepared when numbers grow and the time comes to act. As to how sellers verses buyers would benefit from a people’s site, the answer to that is simply that such a site could implement everything we have all learned about auction trading in a decade of eBay use, but here it would be for the common good, rather than for eBay executives or shareholders, and it would cost the users nothing beyond a one-time $5 pledge. A free site that was also a better site would rapidly become the largest site and, in that way, we would have reconstituted the old eBay Community, without eBay Management hegemony and without eBay Inc. avarice.

Finally, I don’t believe Anna or Minna can be faulted for replying in kind here, as it is not reasonable to come to a campaign page making wildly derisive claims and expect the volunteers who have worked for a month on the project already, answering similarly baseless charges repeatedly, to simply concede without grounds and quit. Debate and the challenging of views is not autocracy, but its polar opposite, debate being precisely the thing that is barred in an autocratic system. EBay has become an autocratic system and that’s why we are seeing strikes, boycotts, mass-quitting of the site, and of course also this campaign. Unlike the eBay boards, speech is never stifled nor any posts ever wiped from this comment area, no matter their position. I would only ask that in future perhaps we could cover new ground.

Thank you,

Julia