<story><title>Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/want-to-understand-what-ails-the-modern-internet-look-at-ebay.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>steven2012</author><text>I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I&amp;#x27;m terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I&amp;#x27;ve read suggests that it&amp;#x27;s simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers.&lt;p&gt;As a buyer, however, it&amp;#x27;s great so unless you have enough margins to protect you from scammers, and if you just want to sell one-off things like eBay from the 2000s, then don&amp;#x27;t bother.&lt;p&gt;As a technology platform, eBay is an embarrassment. They released features like collections that didn&amp;#x27;t work on their production website and it looks like they got rid of it entirely now. They have a half-built API that has confusing documentation, and their APIs that do work aren&amp;#x27;t very useful. Nothing about their site has changed in 20 years, and they&amp;#x27;re waiting to die, like Yahoo. I&amp;#x27;m surprised Amazon or even etsy hasn&amp;#x27;t been able to destroy them yet, since they&amp;#x27;re a stationary target that hasn&amp;#x27;t done anything meaningful in over a decade.</text></comment>
<story><title>Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/want-to-understand-what-ails-the-modern-internet-look-at-ebay.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>6nf</author><text>I think I missed the point because I don&amp;#x27;t understand what this article is trying to say exactly.</text></comment>