I can agree with everything this commentator says except for the bit about using PayPal. Gee, could this article have been sourced directly from the PayPal section of the eBay Dept of Spin: the PayPal crew could be trying to provision their lifeboats before the old rust bucket “eBay” eventually goes submarine?
His strategy is using ebay to give away information products aka ebooks, which probably cost him 0 cent.
To get or download that free ebook, the prospect has to enter the name and email in an optin form (some people may enter fake information but that is part of the business) (see
www.aweber.com for example.) He then will bombard (ahem, I mean follow up closely through auto responder. Again see
www.aweber.com to learn how to do this stupid thing effectively) with other paid products (could be his, or other people product.) Never mind if you hate this. As long as 1 out of 1000 subscriber like this idea, he will get paid.
Paypal fit this auto pilot business model perfectly. What else if not paypal?
Btw, paypal subscription billing (recurring payment) is the easiest to manage (for buyer) compared to other online merchant.
Just because you hate paypal doesn't mean paypal is bad for everything.
If you run a zero cost (or very low cost) auto pilot business, why not paypal?
You may not realize people have been talking this strategy long, long time ago when everyone love ebay.
Doesn't matter if one day ebay sink like you have expected, people can still apply this strategy on amazon, google, msn, facebook, twitter, blog and whatnot. It is for creative people who can see things beyond paypal and ebay.
Sorry it is not really about ebay or paypal, it is about human greed and fear. The keyword here is "FREE" information product. Why information product, because that is the easiest form of selling. I learnt this from Bill Gates.