The ever so 'user-friendly' PayPal service

[zarathstra]

Not to sound like a corporate whore...but I've never had any problems with paypal. I live in the US, so I have no experience with dealing with them from overseas, but my experiences have been fine.

[marurun]

Ebay owns Paypal.

Supporting one of your products through another product isn't really a monopoly.

Actually, this would fall under abuse of a monopoly position if eBay and Paypal are both monopoly products. Let's keep in mind that it's not illegal to be a monopoly. It's illegal to leverage a monopoly to stifle competition. If eBay is a monopoly in on-line auctions and they only use their own on-line payment system, Paypal, which might also be a monopoly product, and don't allow competitors' products, like Amazon or Google checkout, to be used, that could constitute abusive monopoly practices. I mean, this is the kinda crap Microsoft was pursued (is still being pursued) for.

[lordofduct]

But neither are a monopoly and merely are one of many options available for each.

There are several online auction sites (ebay, amazon, a few smaller ones) along with several online payment systems (google checkout, 2checkout, authorize.net, etc). As well as paypal isn't the only payment option, it's just the secure payment process supported directly through ebay. Other payment options aren't covered by the user agreement and protection clauses due to a large innability of ebay to easily solve issues between them. You can always use: check, cash, money order, or other outside credit solution at your own risk.

I get the idea that yes it does push users to utilize paypal as their payment product by leveraging it through their auction site as the "safe alternative". But it's more abstract then that and really would be hard to consider monopolizing a market. They'd have to strictly forbid the use of any outside payment process BUT paypal. Which isn't so, they just suggest paypal as a the safest option.

But it's similar to say a cellular phone maker "suggesting" to use their power adapter for charging for safest compatibility, though of course a number of them can and will work. Cell phones even tie on the fact the charger sometimes has a proprietary adapter for the charger making it even more difficult to get a 3rd party charger.

Does it suck in the end? Yes. Is it monopolizing? Not really.

[MrPopo]

Ebay is not a monopoly in online auction sites in the same way that Microsoft is not a monopoly in the home PC OS market. It's one of those "technically it's not, but it essentially is".

And a minor point of clarification, Amazon no longer has an auction site. They stick with third party sellers for the marketplace at fixed prices determined by the seller.

[marurun]

Monopoly position is determined by law based on how much of the market is controlled and, based on that, how much influence can be brought to bear against that market. eBay may have some minor competitors, but I believe they control a monopoly share of the US auction market (I believe the monopoly line is abstractly set at something like 85% of the market). And Paypal probably has more than that when it comes to electronic payment systems. Just because nobody's sued them for this yet doesn't mean it's not a serious threat to the marketplace.

[lordofduct]

A little minor point...

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ ... 874618.htm

paypal takes a 12% market share in "online-payments" in the US. Far from the 85% monopoly mark.



and though a little older:

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2 ... ebays-way/

17 - 19% in 2008 says this article from CNN Fortune for ebay. Ebay of course tempered as an e-commerce goods service, it's method of allowing sellers to sell in a marriad of methods including "auctioning" doesn't particularly place it into it's own special group of stores. It's just an extra "feature" made available to their contractors in selling. Fixed rate sales, and ebay stores still exist, essentially making ebay an "e-commerce goods service".

Of course considering, ebay is a huge chunk. 19% is A LOT. But it ain't no monopoly.

Nothing like say Coca-Cola's 45% US Market Share in soft drinks... or Visa's 48 - 50% market share on credit cards... and we aren't running out calling them a monopoly.



My point is, just because you see it everywhere doesn't mean it is. That's just effective advertisement penetration. I see Apple everywhere, yet they only hold 10% of the Home Computing market.

The other thing is monopoly means they are leveraging it to "force" you to use their product. You aren't forced to only buy from ebay, nor are you forced to only use paypal. The fact that your product is only available on ebay because it is eclectic isn't ebay's fault. And the fact the ebay seller decides to only except paypal isn't paypal's fault. Just as much as it isn't Visa's fault that the convenience store next to my house only takes Visa or cash.


[edit]
and I want to be clear... I'm an anti-capitalist who believes in socialism and nationalizing the countries banks and insurance companies. So yeah...

[MrPopo]

I know it's totally off topic, but that last comment has made me wonder.

Duct, is your new avatar a self portrait?

[lordofduct]

Looking at it in its small form it does kinda look like a self portrait... I wish I could paint that well.

No it's an actual photo from last weekend at the bar with my friends. I was attacked with tape... errr, I attacked myself with tape.

[MrPopo]

Having seen this photo, none of your stories seem outlandish anymore.