That was their belief back then, under Meg Whitman. It didn't work too well for them, sales dropped because the site had a reputation for low-quality products and sellers who were plainly crooks. With Donahoe matters improved fairly rapidly.
There's no reason it needs to be just one or the other, especially considering a business based on network effect and, literally, market-making.
> Ms. Whitman got in a few public tussles with the “community,” as eBay’s buyers and sellers are known. One came when she made an arrangement with Disney to give it special status on the site — its own Disney Auctions page. That violated Mr. Omidyar’s founding principle that eBay would be a global platform to which any buyer or seller could come as an equal.
I hypothesize that the departure from this treatment of buyers and sellers as equals has eroded their uniquenes and therefore that part of its value.
Presumably there's plenty of competition in both the buyer-first and seller-first e-commerce spaces.
Gotta love Disney. In my humble experience with that company, it very often requests (and obtains) special treatment from business partners. It's magical.
