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an anti-competitive squabble among net neutrality friends?

I had to grin when I saw that two of net neutrality top supporters of net neutrality, eBay and Craig Newmark of Craig's list are reportedly in an legal fight and Craigslist is actually accusing eBay of anti-competitive behavior

I have to point out two ironies here:

First, eBay has 95% share of the online auction market. Yep, like Google in Europe, eBay is well past the unofficial maarket share level of what it takes to be declared a monopoly.

  • It seems as if online unofficial monopolies like eBay are not above leveraging their market power in one market,online auctions, into an adjacent market like the classified ad market.

Second, it is both Craigslist and eBay, who are eviserating one side of the newspaper industry's two-sided business model (ads and subscriptions), while at the same time promoting net neutrality, which is a clever scheme by online monopolies like Google and eBay to effectively prevent broadband companies from evolving into a two-sided marketplace with  both subscriptions and advertising.

 Bottom line: It seems as if eBay defines anti-competitive as what others might do to eBay, not what eBay actually does to others. Ask Craig.