Re: [NTLK] [FS or T] Mac and newton related gear

~~~ On 2006/12/15 14:04, John at OceanCity@mac.com wrote ~~~

> Should not all parties to a transaction have the "freedom" to contrive
> their own set of tactics to protect or not protect their own interests
> in their own way?

That's a very broad brush, and as it stands it opens the way for abuse. If
not constrained by conditions of commercial fair play and the rest, that
statement could be taken to an extreme that turns "let the buyer beware"
into "let the buyer be suspicious, mistrusting, and prepared to hire a
private detective to investigate the seller, and maybe a thug to go after
him later".

I suppose the issue here includes things like: [1] do "their own interests"
include attracting potential buyers who might not bid if they knew what was
really going to be involved -- true product condition and all relevant
purchasing costs for example, and [2] do "their own tactics"/"their own way"
include concealment of relevant information about the product? And that
sounds like what the people expressing complaints here are saying (e.g.,
Greg).

I'm in sympathy with most of what Clayton said about what underlies the
ebay/paypal kind of operation, but I also am concerned about the attitude of
sellers and buyers to each other that it can encourage in the less well
socialized portions of humanity -- as if they were competing against each
other and the point were not simply to do a good deal but to extract the
maximum out of each other. Like two predators hunting each other.

But in the end that's not just the fault of the ebay/paypal people, except
in the sense that they don't regulate it with a functional code of conduct
and proper controls. The predatory aspect of those auctions is a societal
problem, to do with a growing consensus that self-serving by [almost?] any
means is perfectly OK, and if someone else gets hurt that may be OK too:
it's their responsibility and their lookout. But that's even more off-topic
to NTLK than ebay's and paypal's shortcomings, so I won't go there.

Just my £0.02 worth.

Shalom.
Christian

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