Even a decade ago when with my first lap-top still shiny and new ebay had some of the free enterprise spirit about it, although even then businesses were taking over, encouraged by ebay. It was still somewhere that anyone could try out their selling skills without having been to business school or having years in B&M retail.
Back then ebay's policies weren't totally self-serving, there was some seller protection and a more balanced approach to buyer protection. Now private sellers need protecting from ebay as it again shows itself quite happy to insult private sellers as it throws them under a bus in another attempt to bolster its failing bottom line.
I don't think there's much of that spirit left and ebay's trying to get rid of what little there is as quick as it can, in favour of a "you work for us now" attitude where we do as we're told, are preyed on by the platform, its re-sellers and the delivery companies all looking to leave us as little as possible and convert our property into their profits. Lately even HMRC is homing-in on what they all see as a cash cow to see how much more they can squeeze out of it.
But when the ebay CEO recently said that the average private seller made about £/$ 150 a year from selling on ebay (I don't remember which currency he was talking about) there is very little meat left on the bone to make the effort worthwhile and these recent changes haven't improved the situation.
