A trip back Memory Lane

[pierrelebel]

January 17th, 2002

eBay Head Office, San Jose California

Ten eBay users (both buyers and sellers) selected to participate in a two day conference in the newly revised "Voice of the Customer" program (I was the only Canadian).

We will be meeting eBay's senior executives (president, vice-presidents, senior managers) to give our honest opinion on the many aspects of eBay that concern us.

After the usual introduction and tour, I still remember vividly our first brainstorming session.  The highlight was a detailed written presentation by a seller suggesting eBay was getting much too complicated and needed to offer a new "plain vanilla eBay".  And that was way back in 2002 folks.

When we see all the changes since then, most of them bringing problems - both policy and technical - I really wish eBay would go back to that "plain vanilla" concept we suggester back in 2002.

[pjcdn2005]

Or even go back to the 2002 'complicated' version. It has to have been less complicated than the one now.

[rose-dee]

When we see all the changes since then, most of them bringing problems - both policy and technical - I really wish eBay would go back to that "plain vanilla" concept we suggester back in 2002.

I agree.  There have been layer upon layer of accretion, some site-related, some policy-related, that like barnacles on a very large boat, are weighing eBay down.  It seems to me the process of change has actually accelerated in the past 12 to 16 months, to the point where it's evident from comments on these boards that many are becoming confused and frustrated trying to keep up.  I particularly sympathize with new buyers and sellers -- eBay must seem like a monolithic Hydra to a newcomer!

The effect, in my view, is not that the site is now more "user-friendly" for either buyers or sellers, or even more attractive, but more jumbled up, frenetic, complex and difficult to access.  Personally I think eBay has bitten off more than it can chew this time in "improvements".  Remember the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?  Small adjustments are fine, but this is agony.     

[pocomocomputing]

Here is the home page for eBay Canada back on June2 2002.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020602233930/http://www.ebay.ca/

Some limited functionality. Selecting a category brings up current items.

Look at the moose logo. It seems the old eBay had some character to it.

[art-in-the-making]

haha - great thread!

Amazingly, if you go onto the ebay.ca page, you can click through to community and get the front page of CTS.

But that is not all - a few lines down from the top is a post by computer_saskboy, titled, "Go WayBack with the archive.org Wayback Machine".

surreal - a fluke or somehow predetermined?

[karl*katz]

Try the link that says

See The Regulars

That was a nice idea.