The internet must be getting old: eBay has given up its idealism.

For most of its 13 years, eBay has been run largely as a self-policed island, a place where order was preserved less by real world laws than by norms and customs and expectations and reputations that were almost entirely virtual.

The theory was that everyone would know who the crooks were by reading their feedback. Now the company has basically admitted that this model does not work.

Most sellers see eBay's response as a dramatic shift in the balance of power, and they are right. In future, the consumer will be king: buyers will easily be able to threaten sellers with negative feedback and sellers will find it much harder to strike back. Many sellers fear the new dictatorship of the consumer.

From the archive:

In my experience the answer to bad speech has always been more speech.

She clearly understands equality. Shame she doesn't also understand that the answer to bad speech is more speech.

In response to "bad" speech, more speech leads to self censorship, on the basis of financial self interest.

Democracy meets capitalism at its finest.

The death of self-rule on the internet