So, what else is there to do?
Accept what is, as difficult as that may be now, and make it work as long as possible for our own purposes (while perhaps also keeping a little insurance in our pockets by staying active on another site)? Probably the best answer for most -- for a while at least.
Leave? Certainly, if it makes no financial sense to stay. Why throw good money after bad by paying eBay to help you lose money?
Complain? Yes, that might help us feel better, and if enough sellers complain about the same things, it's possible eBay might make some concessions (as, in fairness, I have to say they've done in a few instances).
Start another site, geared toward small sellers, similar to what eBay once was? Good luck with that one.
Seller rebellion or "strike"? That would be the very definition of a lost cause (see above).
Futile, yeah, and all this stuff has been tried and failed anyway. And tons of complaints have resulted in some minute adjustments along the way, yeah maybe. Although, usually even when they say something is for "seller protection" you can look into it and realize that in some way it still optimizes the site for corporate sellers vs smaller sellers.
People would probably have a way more luck changing something like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business http://www.cfib-fcei.ca/english/about-us/canada/178-about-us.html with an eye towards leveraging them to actually take on lobbying that would benefit small business instead of the Conservative "tax reduction" and "anti-labour" kow-towing that they mostly busy themselves with.
This organization claims to have 109,000 small and medium sized business members and lobby for their interests. But really from what I can see, most of their policies are super friendly to BIG business ~ which means they are small business's worst enemy, as many people seriously selling on eBay can perhaps understand.
We have never been members but these guys came to my attention during the recent temporary foreign workers foofurah. Again, they're in there lobbying like crazy in favour of bringing in more foreign workers. Which, to me, is just another way of keeping wages low, making sure there are fewer people who can actually afford to buy what we sell, and greasing the wheels for big biz at the same time, so they can put more small folks out of business.
But the CFIB is infinitely more responsive than eBay. You can easily have a respectful conversation with their senior execs on twitter or probably facebook. So that's what got me thinking along these lines. Knowing the dynamics of organizations, 109,000 members probably means about 9 members doing most of the work and setting the agenda. And these folks have access to various government ministers, etc.
With the experience of seeing the demise of eBay for independent sellers we have seen how big business is far more of a threat to independent sellers than either taxes or labour costs, which is 95-99% of what CFIB worries about.
So, just an alternative answer to the question "What to do?" If someone felt they had the energy and wherewithall to apply themselves to an independent business cause where you could actually have some influence, you might want to look around, see if you have a local chapter or whatever.
