Even some of the analysts are finally catching on...

From Skip McGrath:

Taxes and The eBay Seller

The Online Seller's News, June 6, 2011, Volume 11, No. 11

4. Is Management Trying To Kill The "eBay Community?"

Whenever I write an article like this I always worry that new and small eBay sellers will read it and become discouraged - and that is certainly not my intent. It is still quite possible to start and run a profitable eBay business. What I am pointing out in this article is that it's more of just a business now and not as much fun as it used to be. I don't think that will change until eBay investors get fed up with the current management and boot them out. We can never go back to the "old eBay," but a new broom is needed to sweep the eBay offices clean of the people who screwed up this once-great company.

When eBay first started skeptics said it wouldn't work. A popular quote was: "There is no way someone will buy something from an auction and then send money to a complete stranger." Boy, were the skeptics wrong. Overnight eBay became the fastest growing company in America. And when they went public eBay held the Wall Street record for the fastest growing public company in history. So what happened?

There were three secrets to the early success of eBay and current management has abandoned them all.