I'll be interested to learn how many eBay users see through the self-serving call to action letter they received yesterday from eBay CEO Meg Whitman. eBay users are very savvy business people, and if they read the letter carefully, they will see that eBay is asking to get a better bandwidth deal for itself than its users get.
If eBay didn't live in the rarified air of 82% gross profit margins and the Internet giant elites, and if eBay truly looked at the world through its earthbound users' eyes, it would see that eBay users have long toiled away in the "two-tiered" Internet world that they look upon with such disdain. eBay should know that its users have long had the competitive choice of using the slow-lane, "dirt road" of dial-up (still used by ~35 million American households), and the faster lanes of different types of broadband (now used by over 37 million American
households.)
eBays users live in a competitive world and pay the competitive rate for bandwidth every day. And this competitive multi-tier world which eBay looks down upon -- actually serves consumers and eBay users quite well - providing more access choices, faster speeds, and more mobile access to the Internet than ever before. eBay users know if they want more bandwidth available they can choose to buy it. In many instances dial-up users transitioning to broadband are paying less than they did for their dial-up.
Most all of eBay's users already pay a competitive rate for the speed they want - that won't change -with or without net neutrality. What net neutrality really is all about is negotiating sweetheart wholesale arrangement for the e-commerce giants. eBay users are just being used as convenient political pawns in a grand commercial wholesale negotiation.
Does anyone really believe that eBay, with 82% gross profit margins, can't afford to pay a competitive rate for bandwidth? All of eBay's users seem to manage just fine without a regulated rate for bandwidth.
Why is eBay so scared of competition?
