mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@andreyprince wrote:Trump owns 65% of Truth Social which is worth $5.76B, his share is valued at $3.74B. That's just Truth Social. How much do you think 1 Trump Tower is worth? I think there is 10 of them around the world.
Trump started Truth Social. There has been some changes.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/DJT
@andreyprince wrote:I did get a tax break from his tax cuts.
I also believe the government should get as little of our collective money as possible, so even tax cuts for billionaires I support, because I think they can do more good with it than the government.
I'll think of more later!
What is it that you disliked the most about his policies?
Well that depends on what you may or may not need or want from the government.
Roads
Bridges
Other Infrastructure
Social programs that feed and house some people
Social programs that school some people
Justice System
Reduce Disease
Ensure safe food and water
Increase access to health care
Support Veterans
Improve air quality
Consumer protection
Protection of Forests and endangered wildlife
and the list goes on and on.
Taxes have a purpose. It is just currently it is Middle America that takes the front seat on paying taxes.
I am glad you got a tax cut. I sincerely think that is wonderful. My family wasn't so lucky nor were lots of others.
@andreyprince wrote:
What is it that you disliked the most about his policies?
That is such a good question. I'm one of those that I take him at his word. I believe what he says he means to do. When he says he will go after those that oppose him if he is elected, he means that. For him it will be all out war as loyalty to him is paramount in his world. Not so much his loyalty to them, but theirs to him.
Now that Scotus as ruled of Presidential immunity, it gets really scary, VERY scary. When he moves back and forth on subjects, that is a political move as he is trying to get elected, and some of his positions are not that popular, so he has to be careful.
I don't want to send this conversation over the edge as I've enjoyed talking with you. Time for me to retire for the evening. I hope your balance of the evening goes well.
@gurlcat wrote:
@andreyprince wrote:Why would he grocery shop? He's a billionaire. You can't have it both ways. Either he's broke and has to buy his own groceries, or he's a billionaire and lives like one. Which is it?
Billionaires are good for nothing but eating. Sweet, juicy charbroiled billionaire meat. MMMMMMmmmmmm..........
That is really unnecessary, unfair and untrue. Certainly some might not do much to benefit the world around them, but there are plenty that have given away millions and millions and millions of dollars to help those that need it. Lumping him in with the ones that actually do things to help others just misrepresents the majority of people with wealth. If you need specifics, I will provide some for your consideration.
With that said, I still believe they should be held responsible to pay their share of taxes.
@linus.hux72fe wrote:To anyone who cares to reply:
I've seen over and over the statement made up thread in regards to various points many posters make about "throttling"-that of it being against the financial interests of eBay.
I'm a bit confused about that argument.
To me, that argument is only true if the seller claiming to be throttled is the only seller of the item claiming to be "throttled". Then it would be a financial loss for eBay as no one would be able to purchase, assuming there were buyers hoping to purchase.
However, if there are other sellers of said item, assuming the price is relatively the same, where is the financial cost for eBay of "throttling"? Since the prospective purchasers will simply purchase from sellers not being "throttled". Therefore no loss for eBay.
Posing this question does not mean I believe or disbelieve the theory of "throttling". It simply means I don't follow one of the commonly stated reasons posed for eBay not "throttling" and am wondering if I'm missing a logical point?
As to the difference between "throttling" and hiding a listing from search results, I may be wrong but I seem to remember many years ago eBay stating somewhere a goal of theirs is to spread out sales among sellers, or something to that effect. Is that not a form of "throttling", if indeed I'm remembering correctly? That's assuming, of course, that there are no other egregious policy issues for limiting visibility.
Third question: I'm not clear that the people claiming to be "throttled" at various times are stating ALL their listings are absent from search. I, often, read the posts as saying they have a "popular" item that they have few to no views on and other same items are selling even when priced higher. Am I reading their meaning incorrectly?
Thank you
When people say "Why would eBay throttle and hurt their own income?" it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how throttling works in the eyes of eBay. There's a few different points that will have to all be taken together for a thorough understanding.
eBay's profit doesn't get affected as long as THEY get a sale, the question here is about the SELLERS, not eBay.
Regarding "limits" eBay has admit to these in the past, and since then has basically just stayed quiet/not put anything in writing. Some people on here argue that they 'do not have limits', but based on their own word, they do.
This is something large sellers can see immediately, as they have a large sample set of sales. If you're getting 100+ orders a day, trends are immediately noticeable. You have 4 months at, for example, $10,000 in sales a day. Suddenly eBay does a major update, and your income has dropped to $6,000 a day overnight. This is unnatural. This is NOT the economy, this is NOT buyer behavior.
Furthermore, the fact you can go months without fluctations in sales patterns is enough to show that eBay throttles. Because "real" traffic is random. You have good days, you have bad days. If you track your websites statistics and SEO, Google trends, etc, you can see this in action. Real traffic is very volatile.
EBay doesn't work like that. It's more similar to a sine curve on eBay. If your sales/31 days average is $100,000, you have a slow day dropping you to $95k? The next day will suddenly be a big day, bringing you back up to $100,000. But then a repeat customer buys an expensive bundle. Now you're at $115,000, suddenly sales STOP, your visibility falls off a cliff, and you have the slowest day in months.
This is the behavior that larger sellers have seen since 2017.
Then you have to factor in ads. You'll find that REGARDLESS of how the sales work as I mentioned above, eBay will CONSISTENTLY keep the ad spending high. Shouldn't higher investment in promotions mean MORE visibility and MORE sales? News flash, we literally DOUBLED our promotions, and it did NOT lead to an increase in sales. If you're hitting your "ceiling" of sales, the extra traffic does NOTHING. This isn't something that is possible without throttling.
Many top sellers also network with the other top sellers, especially since the tariffs began/etc, as we all face stock shortages from time to time. We also network with smaller sellers, who buy from us locally to sell at their own stores, etc. This is where throttling becomes obvious. As a larger store, we would often have our sales earlier in the day. Suddenly, once we get close to our ceiling number? Sales start trickling in. At the same time, those smaller sellers begin to get sales. Now those sellers can NOT in truth compete with our listings, they offer higher prices, slower shipping, etc. But now they're the ones getting sales, not us.
You can view this behavior if you search in your category at different times of the day. Mornings will show sellers that have higher amounts of sales in the specific category. Later in the day, the top search results are names that do not have a strong presence in the category.
This leads to "spreading the wealth" in a sense, but more problematically, leads to a slow decline to all of those in put in the most effort and are leading the category. You might think this benefits smaller sellers? But it doesn't really do that either, as they are still dependent on the top sellers "reaching their ceiling" before they get sales. The 'volatility' I mentioned of traffic? That is felt most by the smaller sellers. Even though that ceiling for the large sellers is dropping, they see less fluctuation.
For those who say no one has ever proven throttling, that is misleading to say. What type of evidence would satisfy those claims? Is it not enough that sellers have shown their sales numbers consistently getting cut off at the same number each day? Is it not enough to recognize the known curves and patterns of throttling by experts in the industry? You can speak to anyone specialized in SEO/marketing/etc. These types of algorithms are not exclusive to eBay. They are easily recognizable. And there's no way possible that sellers would have a CONSISTENT sales/31 days number for months at a time without throttling. There's two sides to every coin. eBay couldn't possibly help give you a certain amount of orders a day, without slowing other sellers down at that time of the day. And then when you look at how their promotion systems work by design, it's a form of controlled throttling.
What form of 'evidence' would be sufficient UNLESS it is eBay admitting itself? Well good news on that front. eBay had ADMIT to these limits in the past. Why is proof of how these algorithms work even necessary when eBay has ADMIT to limiting their sellers? (AKA throttling).
We can count through that list and find a number of limits that would be IMPOSSIBLE without throttling. "Velocity limits" are throttling. "Hot item limits" are throttling. "Silent limits" is HIDDEN THROTTLING. URC limits (which an ebay supervisor had admit to me in 2018 and I posted about on this very forum in my first major posts) are real and they call "risk codes", and are throttling. Plus eBay openly says "Ensuring sellers can manage their sales" as one of their reasons. That is not possible without throttling.
It really boggles my mind that people are still claiming throttling doesn't happen, or defending it with illogical claims like "why would ebay harm their own sales?" when these things have been discussed time and time again for years.
@movieman630 wrote:You're right, the economy is hurting. Veteran sellers who've been here long enough know this, we also know that it's not ebay's fault that the overall financial situation in the US is so bad. That being said, we also know that the "regular games" ebay plays with "throttling"; visibility; promoted listings; lack of outside advertising; etc becomes more apparent in hard times. Thus people "blaming ebay". We don't think they're intentionally destroying their own sales... We just notice it more because they regular algorithmic games make it harder for us to make a living.
It might be a good idea if Ebay's executives shut off a few of their "throttling" algorithms right now, given the economic situation... Like they did during covid. Notice how most sellers remember 2020 as being one of the best years for sales. That's not just because people stayed home and suddenly discovered online shopping.
We all know there's "games" programmed into the system. Nothing is organic or left up to chance anymore. It's knowing this that makes people "blame ebay". Also their "lack of transparency" when it comes to these schemes.
While many sellers over the years have accused Ebay of "throttling" them, not a one has ever backed that up with actual proof that Ebay was doing that. So it is highly unlikely to be true.
Now Ebay does hide some listings from time to time. They even tell us in the User Agreement that they do that. But they aren't all the listings for a given seller, which is what "throttling" is.
So Ebay is transparent about hiding some listings. What is not transparent is the proof that Ebay is "throttling" any given seller.
