If I were looking at my inventory and found items that I didn't think would justify a 35 cent fee, I would not put the effort into them to list them even if it was free.
Once again, your argument seems to be that the only decision about whether an item justifies the 35 cent fee has to do with the margin. I have plenty of items that cost me nothing to acquire, and my expected return for them is $75 to $100.
In these cases, the problem is that they are rare but demand is low - so I have no sold items to go by, and I have idea whether it will sell in 30 days or three years or never. I know that a big fan of a band like Fifty Foot Hose would love to have a signed performance contract from 1968 and would pay a hefty sum ... but let's face it, the Fifty Foot Hose is not Tom Petty or U2 so it might take a year or two to find the right fan.
So it is certainly worth it to me to list it for free, but it is not worth it to pay $12-$15 to list it dozens of times over seveal years - when eBay has demonstrated they are willing to let me list for free for dozens of times over those same years.
If listed and sold, there is still the time factor and expense involved in shipping them, and that probably well exceeds 35 cents. If the margin on an item is that low, the cost of 1 or 2 returns which you are always subject to makes it not worthwhile to list
And again, you seem to be assuming low margin and ignoring the other factors that might make the listng fee a prohibitive expense.
I am happy to spend a few minutes packaging a poster that has sold for $75 or $100, evne though the sale arose from a free listing. In fact, I find the two factors - insertion fee and time spent packing - to be completely unrelated. But you see a connection because you are assuming thereis a low margin, instead of just low demand.
As for time listing, I use Turbo Lister so one I create a listing I never lose it. And when a free listing promo comes along, I can select 500 items form my inventory, click "upload all", and sip a cocktail while catching up on "Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee". Those 500 listings may take an hour or two to upload, but they only take 30 seconds of my attention.
Just my personal way of listing, I overthink most of this stuff.
You're not overthinking, but you are just making incorrect assumptions about why other sellers try to avoid insertion fees.
