[conspire] Re: Free hardware!

[Eric De Mund]

Christian,

On Friday 14 January 2005 22:54, Bill Lazar wrote:
> www.freecycle.org seems fairly similar.

Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at earthlink.net>:
] Thanks for the heads up about Freecycle.org. They actually are broad-
] er. I am hoping that our diyparts.org site will be more directly re-
] lated to computers. There is lots of good stuff in there for compu-
] ters, but it might not be as convenient, because it is more general,
] and geeks will have to plough through other stuff to get to what they
] want. I am hoping to focus more narrowly on computer parts.

In my view--and borne out by eBay--aggregation/coalescing rather than
differentiation is what will drive up traffic here and is what you want.

Why do sellers sell on eBay? One reason: Because that is where the
buyers go. Why do buyers shop on eBay? One reason: Because that is where
the sellers go. It's a positive feedback loop. The presence of more
sellers makes it more attractive to buyers. The presence of more buyers
makes it more attractive to sellers. (In a similar way, the population
of wolves that visits the valley floor is probably a little bit plumper
than that of those who insist on remaining on the upper slopes.)

There *are* other on-line auction sites, but ceteris paribus, any one
with a significantly greater population has an inherent advantage over
the others.

Yes, the increased generality makes it a bit more laborious for any in-
dividual constituency to find what they're looking for, but that's com-
pensated for by the fact that what they're looking for is more likely to
be there.

Eric
--
     A neighbor once found Nasrudin searching for something on the
street outside his house.
    "What have you lost, Mulla?" he asked.
    "My key," said Nasrudin.
    So they both went down on their hands and knees and looked for it.
After a time the other man asked: "Where exactly did you drop it?"
    "In my house."
    "Then why, for Heaven's sake, are you looking out here?"
    "There is more light here."

--from The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin by Idries Shah

Eric De Mund              |   Ixian Systems, Inc.   | cell: 650.303.4336
email: <ead at ixian.com>    | 650 Castro St, #120-210 |  fax: 240.282.4443
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