eBay will go bankrupt in 10-15 yrs, and Bitcoin will be largely to blame

[bluefirecorp]

Say what you want about eBay.  When you are trying to sell some shippable crap it works better than Craigslist & Amazon

I was hoping for a better solution between the two. A more free and open ebay type auction site. Honestly, I could see a layout such as the silkroad surpassing ebay in the next 20 years.

But silkroad still charges fees. We need a marketplace that charges as LITTLE fees as possible... maybe a vendor one-time fee and then no "commission" fees

Hosting servers aren't free. It's pretty expensive to host servers. Honestly, I was thinking a market place with maybe 1-2% of fees of the TOTAL sale. Say you're processing $10MM, that's at least 100-200k to pay for servers and such. That's pretty reasonable imho.

Only if there is no back office.  It might be something like Craigslist though

A lot of small sellers run their business on EBay and they need some of EBay's tools

Erm? What? Hosting an API / creating a webapp isn't that expensive. I mean, if you're doing say $10MM in sales, estimate each seller is only selling say $1000. That's only supporting 100k sellers. Say there's 900k buyers (just trying to make the numbers even). That's only 1 million hits, if the average size of each page is a few kilobytes, and the average time on the size is around 20 pages, that's still a very small imprint. Would cost maybe $10k to host the servers. The other 90-190k can go to the cost of employees (maybe 40-70 employees for this sort of operation).

Edit: That's monthly figures by the way.

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[LostDutchman]

Bitcoin will not be the only factor, but it will be the main factor. Ebay has to deal with companies like Alibaba, Amazon, and now possibly Apple taking market share from it. They don't innovate and they won't innovate/change their PayPal unit because they're too scared. It has been suggested that eBay incorporate bitcoin, but they won't do that because bitcoin is still in its early stages. By the time bitcoin expands and is widely used PayPal will be unable to take the lead in digital currencies. This is without the hacking revelations that recently surfaced, which are likely to get worse. I used to like Ebay, but they charge fees that make resorting to bitcoin look like heaven. Their stock has lagged too in 2013, where everything went up. Bitcoin won't be the only factor in their demise, but it will be the main one.

Article that explains this in detail: http://www.panture.com/why-bitcoin-will-force-ebay-to-go-bankrupt/

Horseshit.

[Beliathon]

Honestly, I see ebay accepting bitcoin if it ever became mainstream. Adapt or die in this sort of situation. No company wants to just die.

That is correct. When Paypal no longer exists and the dollar is crashing in value, eBay will have no choice. That company won't go out of business because those who profit from it are rationally self-interested.

It's the dollar that's going out of business, not eBay.

[LostDutchman]

Honestly, I see ebay accepting bitcoin if it ever became mainstream. Adapt or die in this sort of situation. No company wants to just die.

That is correct. When Paypal no longer exists and the dollar is crashing in value, eBay will have no choice. That company won't go out of business because those who profit from it are rationally self-interested.

It's the dollar that's going out of business, not eBay.

Horseshit.

[twiifm]

Say what you want about eBay.  When you are trying to sell some shippable crap it works better than Craigslist & Amazon

I was hoping for a better solution between the two. A more free and open ebay type auction site. Honestly, I could see a layout such as the silkroad surpassing ebay in the next 20 years.

But silkroad still charges fees. We need a marketplace that charges as LITTLE fees as possible... maybe a vendor one-time fee and then no "commission" fees

Hosting servers aren't free. It's pretty expensive to host servers. Honestly, I was thinking a market place with maybe 1-2% of fees of the TOTAL sale. Say you're processing $10MM, that's at least 100-200k to pay for servers and such. That's pretty reasonable imho.

Only if there is no back office.  It might be something like Craigslist though

A lot of small sellers run their business on EBay and they need some of EBay's tools

Erm? What? Hosting an API / creating a webapp isn't that expensive. I mean, if you're doing say $10MM in sales, estimate each seller is only selling say $1000. That's only supporting 100k sellers. Say there's 900k buyers (just trying to make the numbers even). That's only 1 million hits, if the average size of each page is a few kilobytes, and the average time on the size is around 20 pages, that's still a very small imprint. Would cost maybe $10k to host the servers. The other 90-190k can go to the cost of employees (maybe 40-70 employees for this sort of operation).

Edit: That's monthly figures by the way.

I don't think business scale like that.  You can look up eBay's 10-k and read there financials since they're public

[keithers]

I would be willing to put a large sum of money that Ebay will not be bankrupt in 10-15 years, but the bet would be too long for it to be any fun... 

If/when they feel they will be more profitable by adding BTC, they will definitely do so.  For the time being, honestly...why would they add something that could make them less money?  Would you if it were your business model?

[maurya78]

Correction: Crypto will be largely to blame
Jury still out on whether BTC will survive 10-15 years

[bryant.coleman]

Correction: Crypto will be largely to blame
Jury still out on whether BTC will survive 10-15 years

Bitcoin will survive, just because there is no competition for it from the other alternatives. All the worthless shitcoins are counterfeits and copycats, who don't have any advantage over the Bitcoin.

[beetcoin]

I would be willing to put a large sum of money that Ebay will not be bankrupt in 10-15 years, but the bet would be too long for it to be any fun...  

If/when they feel they will be more profitable by adding BTC, they will definitely do so.  For the time being, honestly...why would they add something that could make them less money?  Would you if it were your business model?

get in now because they could have the leg up on comeptition.. this is like a wild west or gold rush version of computer technology and currency/finance.

[BitCoinNutJob]

its time for a decentralized ebay using bitcoin

[indiguy]

They would have to also use coins to actually go along with the trend and prevent bankruptcy. As far as I know amazon is currently using crypto.

[ranlo]

If ebay fails as a business model it will fail because of outrages fees, a broken feedback system, or a competitor, not because of a currency.

Not to mention they are already preparing to embrace Bitcoin. How they will implement it will be interesting to see, but I don't think Bitcoin has anything to do with killing eBay or PayPal. If anything it will help strengthen their marketplace.

[beetcoin]

If ebay fails as a business model it will fail because of outrages fees, a broken feedback system, or a competitor, not because of a currency.

Not to mention they are already preparing to embrace Bitcoin. How they will implement it will be interesting to see, but I don't think Bitcoin has anything to do with killing eBay or PayPal. If anything it will help strengthen their marketplace.

i wonder if there's an actual userbase that would be open to dealing with bitcoin through ebay. i know most of us early adopters are completely against paypal/ebay, but there are future btc users who might use their services.

[ranlo]

If ebay fails as a business model it will fail because of outrages fees, a broken feedback system, or a competitor, not because of a currency.

Not to mention they are already preparing to embrace Bitcoin. How they will implement it will be interesting to see, but I don't think Bitcoin has anything to do with killing eBay or PayPal. If anything it will help strengthen their marketplace.

i wonder if there's an actual userbase that would be open to dealing with bitcoin through ebay. i know most of us early adopters are completely against paypal/ebay, but there are future btc users who might use their services.

eBay/PayPal are mainstream, whereas Bitcoin isn't. That means they have a MASSIVE market to bring Bitcoin to and they will achieve that easily. The question is more along the lines of how badly they will hurt Bitcoin in the process (bringing it mainstream through those companies may not be what we want, but it's hard to tell. It's either going to be great or it's going to be one of the worst things to happen).

[beetcoin]

If ebay fails as a business model it will fail because of outrages fees, a broken feedback system, or a competitor, not because of a currency.

Not to mention they are already preparing to embrace Bitcoin. How they will implement it will be interesting to see, but I don't think Bitcoin has anything to do with killing eBay or PayPal. If anything it will help strengthen their marketplace.

i wonder if there's an actual userbase that would be open to dealing with bitcoin through ebay. i know most of us early adopters are completely against paypal/ebay, but there are future btc users who might use their services.

eBay/PayPal are mainstream, whereas Bitcoin isn't. That means they have a MASSIVE market to bring Bitcoin to and they will achieve that easily. The question is more along the lines of how badly they will hurt Bitcoin in the process (bringing it mainstream through those companies may not be what we want, but it's hard to tell. It's either going to be great or it's going to be one of the worst things to happen).

sure, but i can't foresee ebay integrating some function of bitcoin that fiat/credit cards can't do. maybe they'll come out with some great ideas.

[nkocevar]

If ebay fails as a business model it will fail because of outrages fees, a broken feedback system, or a competitor, not because of a currency.

Not to mention they are already preparing to embrace Bitcoin. How they will implement it will be interesting to see, but I don't think Bitcoin has anything to do with killing eBay or PayPal. If anything it will help strengthen their marketplace.

i wonder if there's an actual userbase that would be open to dealing with bitcoin through ebay. i know most of us early adopters are completely against paypal/ebay, but there are future btc users who might use their services.

eBay/PayPal are mainstream, whereas Bitcoin isn't. That means they have a MASSIVE market to bring Bitcoin to and they will achieve that easily. The question is more along the lines of how badly they will hurt Bitcoin in the process (bringing it mainstream through those companies may not be what we want, but it's hard to tell. It's either going to be great or it's going to be one of the worst things to happen).

I say bitcoin taking out those big companies would be great. People may be mad, but hey, they can just switch over to bitcoin! Bitcoin taking out eBay/Paypal would be postitive media coverage because it will show how efficient bitcoins really are.

[Baitty]

We need something big to happen again in order for me to believe that Bitcoin will be somethign incrediable in the future.

[nkocevar]

We need something big to happen again in order for me to believe that Bitcoin will be somethign incrediable in the future.

Does amazon accepting bitcoin or more winklevii-like investors investing in bitcoin count as something incredible happening? Because I'm sure that would drive the price up sky high!

[Baitty]

We need something big to happen again in order for me to believe that Bitcoin will be somethign incrediable in the future.

Does amazon accepting bitcoin or more winklevii-like investors investing in bitcoin count as something incredible happening? Because I'm sure that would drive the price up sky high!

If amazon or some company like amazon would start accepting Bitcoin that would boost the price up a bit but I don't think that would be enough to substain high numbers.

[DolanDuck]

We need something big to happen again in order for me to believe that Bitcoin will be somethign incrediable in the future.

Does amazon accepting bitcoin or more winklevii-like investors investing in bitcoin count as something incredible happening? Because I'm sure that would drive the price up sky high!

If amazon or some company like amazon would start accepting Bitcoin that would boost the price up a bit but I don't think that would be enough to substain high numbers.

With amazon or other big companies the bitcoin will be widely accepted in all the world, they will contribute to spread the word about it.
I don't know what do you think "high numbers" will be, but in my opinion $1000 is just the baseline for the coming years.