--]On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Tom Whore wrote:
--]
--]> A biz model as good as ebay is sure to spur on competition...i hope.
--]
--]That's just the thing: I don't think competition is good for anyone but the
--]stockholders of the company that eats the smaller company. When Corporation
--]B goes in on Corporation A's game, he either puts A out of business and
--]controls the market, or the two continue on a wild growth race, like yeast
--]in homebrew, until the market becomes such a sty that they both choke on
--]their own excrement and vomit.
Yea but then end results are tasty. And thats is where the consumer comes
in . They want the end result of competitive price wars, increased and
ever reaching ways to get custmer share that spur on inovations and (if
they are thinking right in the control seats) long term commitment to
providing the goods demanded.
Case in point IBM. It was the king of the roost, the walking talking
strutting champ of the computer markets untill (cue in bad evil thme) it
lost site of the goal, that being its customers demand shift from high end
biz machines to lower priced home computers.
IBM though is now playing pheonix from the ashes, or trying to, and its
methods look on the surface to be the very oposite of the IBMcrp that fell
flat on its face inthe 80s. Alliances with Apache, open source ventures,
OSs not of its totaly control....all things that are HOT with the shifting
market making trends of today and sometime in the near tomorow.
Competition is not so much the battle of two or more corportaions
for the king of the hill spot, but rather for keeping themselves the focus
of consumer cash and branding. This may nto always be done by following
the obvious children of todays hype, but rather creating , or assimulting,
demandable items/branding.
The worst sort of biz model, imho, is that which supposes to offer the
consumer the "best" regardless of the consumers defintion of "best".Yes
you can educate the term "best: to be more in line to what your offering,
but in the end if your in the biz of biz, value needs to be transfered
from consumer to your coffers . value of course being more than just moeny
inmany cases.
As to ebay and its worth, yes it worth was to many the way they had thier
system arranged. By dumbing down thier systems they have lost a value, and
thus some will look elsewhere to exchange thier value for goods. Ebay
might learn from this and take actions to adress the problem..but only if
it is thinking in terms of a competitive nature, if only with itself.