'The Perfect Store': The Rise (and Rise) of eBay What Cohen is really documenting -- though he never says it quite this bluntly -- is the way eBay gradually lost the eBaysian spirit as it became an ever bigger, ever more successful business. Today, eBay is a powerful auction site, but it isn't even close to being the kind of equalizing marketplace that Omidyar envisioned. The sellers, by and large, are professionals, highly sophisticated in the ways of maximizing profit in a Web auction. And ordinary buyers have virtually no chance of making a killing on eBay. Winning an eBay auction these days practically requires, among other things, special ''sniping'' software that allows a high bid to be entered a millisecond before the auction ends.
As for the community itself, it's largely gone. EBay now has its share of fraudsters and con men among its users. There are people who try to ruin the ratings of sellers they're angry with. Large numbers of site users seem to be looking for some kind of angle or edge. Former eBay aficionados now publish an online newsletter attacking the company. EBay is a little like a once-small, friendly neighborhood that is now sprawling and impersonal and a bit dangerous.