Please read the first few paragraphs. Once you're done, please read it again.
This is not a moral judgement of ebay or capitalism.
Again, for the 3rd time, this is not a "OMG the fees are too high" rant. Again, I am not saying that I do not want ebay to make money. I want to know where the money goes and how is that justified for a site that has declared itself to be simply a bulletin board and designed itself to have zero liability and provides little service.
Ebay has a GAAP margin of 24%. Apple has a GAAP margin of 19%. Apple is a company that develops, manufactures, warehosues, and sells, real products. It just doesn't add up that a website costs that much money to maintain, specifically, 1.6 Billion in the last quarter alone.
Why would I be interested in this question? Because, even apart from the fact its interesting company, I do *ALOT* of business with ebay and even owned ebay stock in the past. In democracies, people study their candidates and vote in elections. Why? Are they likely to change the election with their single vote? No. They wanted to be informed, as a stakeholder, in something that affects them.
4scrapper,
Basically from a stockholder's perspective. Q3 2008 they made 2B in revenue and 1.6B in costs. Yes, of course ebay has costs. But your post does not give any explanation of how hosting this website costs 1.6 billion dollars.
Your example of hosting this forum is, quite frankly, a dismal example of a cost. I have personally implemented forums with similar traffic, and the cost is negligible.