rogerd - 1:27 pm on Aug 20, 2008 (gmt 0)

The auction format is highly useful for one-of-a-kind items and for collectibles, etc., that are hard to price.

I don't see that market going away at all, even if eBay skews their pricing in an attempt to become a more diverse online marketplace.

In fact, higher prices for straight auctions (and cheaper listing prices for fixed price items) might well be a logical business strategy for eBay. They don't have much competition on the true auction front, while they certainly do on the regular ecommerce side of things.