Delcampe collectibles auction site is much better organized than
ebay (categories of stamps are detailed and defined by experienced philatelists on Delcampe site), much better programmed in general, much friendlier to sellers, and listing and relisting there cost
nothing (they only charge a modest fee after sales).
Many big-time stamp dealers left
ebay already, and rely on their own auction sites (for example, Karl Marquis in Canada and valbyfrim in Denmark), being unable to come to terms with
ebay's unfair and mind-twisting policies.
Why, then, I am still stuck with
ebay — greedy, poorly programmed, openly hostile to sellers, staffed with incompetents?
For one reason only: it takes forever to sell stamps on Delcampe.
ebay is still attracting many more buyers, because
ebay was the
first acceptable site in its niche of the market. Thus, it has become a"virtual standard" of web-based auction, the most recognizable and the most frequently visited web auction site in the world.
I would call it a "Microsoft effect." MS Windows and MS Office are certainly not the best software available — but MS were the first who offered a more or less practically acceptable, if mediocre, solution. And thus became a worldwide quasi-monopoly enforcing their own standards (and, lately, even imposing their systems and applications on users without users' permission — a situation that, I think, awaits legal explosion).
Same effect is observed in many other market segments (
Amazon and PayPal immediately come to mind). Those who come first become the best known, and, therefore, the most successful for a while.
Eventually market forces shall prevail, and competitors will become more popular, but it takes a lot of time and effort to struggle with giant corporate dinosaurs, even though in the end the fate of dinosaurs is unavoidable.
Living in the mountains and having no access to DSL line or microwave link, for 15 years I was forced to use Hughes satellite link for Internet connection. While expensive, the Hughes service was exceptionally poor; data transfer speed were less than 1/10 of the advertized one, their tech support staff, based in India, was as dense and as useless as one could imagine. But Hughes was a quasi-monopoly in our region of Colorado, and I had no other choice.
Recently, Verizon installed a retransmitter tower that allows us to use their signal. Their service is much more efficient, and their speeds are much higher. You cannot imagine, how happy I was to finally say good-by to Hughes, the constant nightmare of my life! Elon Musk is preparing a network of low-orbit satellites that might drive the final nail into the Hughes' coffin.
Yes, it takes long years, but neither governments nor big corporations can prevail forever over market forces, no matter what some community organizers are preaching to their gullible voters, always eager to believe that money grows on trees.
Unfortunately, pace of this natural extinction is sometimes incompatible with the duration of human life. Recognition doesn't always come easy and fast to geniuses, inventors, and other real benefactors of humanity, they are often dead before other people's perceptions, paradigms, and urban myths change enough (the fact that Ayn Rand failed to take into account in her otherwise attractive philosophy). Mozart, Tesla and Van Gogh would be instant millionairs today but they died in poverty and despair.
In the shape it is now,
ebay is doomed. If its shareholders care about the profitability of their long-term investments, they'd better listen to
ebay's users, and kick out their out-of-touch corporate management.
Posted 02/20/2017 12:13 am
