Ah, I remember the good old days of eBay, when you could peruse the entire inventory in an hour, read about the Ebola virus on the main page, and list your soul for sale if the mood struck you. But now it seems the online auction house’s rules, growing more voluminous by the year, are wiping out even the last bits of fun to had on the site. And as if that weren’t bad enough, new rules keep cropping up which seem to have one purpose: protecting the stupid at the other users’ expense.

For example, everybody who uses eBay knows to check the shipping cost before bidding. That’s a given. But instead of placing responsibility on the buyers, where it belongs, eBay has decided to put shipping caps on certain categories, such as video games and books. If you sell a book on eBay, you literally cannot put the shipping cost above $4.00. Everybody knows that Priority Mail costs more than $4.00, even for the lightest shipment headed to the closest destination. So you are left to resort to shipping your books via Media Mail (affectionately referred to as the “slow boat to China” option). However, if your book is very heavy, such as is the case with the majority of textbooks, $4.00 will not even cover Media Mail costs. In frustration, most sellers will probably just increase the cost of the item and offer free shipping. I suspect this may be eBay’s ulterior motive (beyond protecting the stupid and/or lazy) because in this case they get to take a cut of the higher priced item, whereas they don’t take any percentage of shipping fees. Bottom line: sellers make less, eBay makes more, and stupid people are spared having to think too hard or read too much.

Another new development is the banning of certain key words. Users trying to put “Like New” in the title of their listings will receive the following error:

Oops!

Before listing this item, be sure to describe it as “slightly used,” “refurbished,” or other similar words that make it clear the item isn’t new. You can’t use phrases such as “like new” because the listing will show up in search results for new items, which would not be right since the item is used

Yes, really. I couldn’t make this stuff up. In my most humble opinion, someone who can’t differentiate the meaning of “New” from “Like New” shouldn’t be using a computer, let alone spending money through it.

I am torn between feeling offended that eBay thinks its demographic is composed primarily of half-wits and wondering if that really is the case. In 12+ years, I have only ever dealt with reasonably intelligent people through eBay (with one or two glaring exceptions) so I find this “dumbing down” to be a disturbing development, especially when it is a bane to people of normal or higher intelligence. It is possible that catering to idiots may have the unintended result of attracting them like flies. For the rest of us, I suppose, there’s always Craigslist.