Yeah but it's not a free auction site runing from 
the advertising income. When people auction 
something, they are paying a important fee to 
Ebay. Yes, many people use something like Ebay 
because they may sell an item at a higher price 
but many people also used it (and paid for) to get 
a heigher exposure.

Your reasoning is like saying that credit card 
companies should prevent marchants from 
advertising their shops using the credit card 
companies services. In reality it's exactly the 
reverse : Accepting credit card is an advertising 
argument for sellers.

> When you advertise your site, you take buisness
> from them.

If you really think about it, that's a totaly
stupid comment : Because Ebay business is actualy 
the business of the various sellers using it.
Ebay doesn't sell anything. If a seller advertise 
his site, it doesn't take away any business from 
Ebay : because obviously, that seller wasn't going 
to put articles listed on his site on auction 
anyway. (I am only speaking of legitimate articles 
and auction. I am not speaking for "fake" auction 
that are done to only do advertising and never 
sell an item through ebay to avoid paying their 
fee)

In fact, a shop that gain new customers because 
they saw the shop's auction is certainly more 
likely to do new auctions.

Ebay is simply trying to get a monopoly on the 
sale methods which is absurd because it's anyway
impossible. If you take the credit card example, 
it's like if visa or mastercard were trying to 
force sellers to only accept credit card (or one 
type of card) and no other method of paiement. (on 
the fake reasoning that people using another 
method of paiement is taking away their business)

People like you don't seems to understand the 
differance between a free service and a paying 
one.... Sellers are not sponsoring ebay : they
are paying ebay in exchange of something. And 
there is only 2 things that Ebay can provide for 
the money they pay : 1) A possibility to sell at a 
higher price an item. 2) A possibility to reach 
new customers.
For any "real" shop, the possibility to sell at a 
higher price is utterly insignificant because it 
can only be a very marginal part of their 
business. So the only reason a "real" shop has to 
use Ebay, is the advertising provided by running 
auctions once in a while.

Cheers,
Yann Stettler