Free Markets (2) - eBay

Another well known market is eBay. It is even harder to see. I can look at eBay on my computer screen. I could visit San Jose in California and see the eBay offices and the banks of file servers, but I would not really be looking at eBay. The reason is that eBay is really an information system.

eBay holds various types of information. Vendors record descriptions of items that they want to sell and give an indication of the price they want to receive and instructions for payment. Purchasers record the amount they are willing to pay for an item and the address that they want it delivered to. A sale only occurs when the buyer and seller agree on the price. Completed transactions are what make eBay a successful market.

eBay consists of people and information about articles for sale stored on a computerised information system. The people can be evil, but most are not. The articles for sale good may be evil, but most are not. The information recorded might be immoral, if it is deceptive or malicious, but most is not. Evil can be done on eBay, just like at the Sunday market. Sellers may lie. Buyers might cheat. Evil things may change hands. However, whenever an evil occurs, it can be tracked to a person or group of people who were responsible.

The strength of eBay is that it provides a facility to expose immoral people. This also happens at the Sunday market too. The word soon gets around about bad products or unreliable vendors, but word of mouth is slower at transferring information.