The last time I looked at Yahoo Finance to see who it was that actually owned ebay I found a handy list showing Major Shareholders, containing huge financial corporations who seem to do nothing more than control many millions of shares earning huge dividends.
Looking a little further and the same few corporations appeared as Major Shareholders in amazon, etsy and paypal.
I wonder who sets the agenda of the ebay board with its emphasis on the next quarter's profits and returns to investors and seemingly little regard for the longer-term viability of the company and none whatsoever for the little people who create the profit in the first place.
Do they need to when so few companies control so much of the on-line market place. Over the years I've seen particularly dis-liked policies on ebay result in many sellers saying "I'm off to etsy / amazon / Facebook(I never looked at who owns them). But does it really matter? Wherever sellers go they are still filling the same pockets. Perhaps that's why ebay and probably the others never admit to a mistake or change anything for the better.
Why bother when effectively there is nowhere else for sellers to go. One step away from the different names over the door and they are all just different departments of the same business.
