slamming ebay

my thoughts on ebay and its convenient 'see no evil'-as-long-as-it-makes-money policies are on the record... but bill robinson over at the register goes much further

eBay’s not a bad little business. I say with tongue planted firmly in cheek while holding out the distinct possibility that all is not well there. Being a convicted Contrarian, I don't subscribe to conventional wisdom of any kind.
[snip]
After all, we have witnessed the glowing press and corporate admiration for Enron as near-to-death as a few weeks, days even. And what of Worldcom? And Global Crossing? These massive ethical implosions were shocking with their speed of delivery and the Tech sector has worse ethics, in my opinion, than the rest of the corporate world. No, I could well be wrong. But I certainly have the right to say what I think. Fact is, nobody would bat an eyelash if these web giants crashed and burned So, I repeat: eBay's not a bad little business - but it is unproven, we don't know what the hell's going on behind the scenes. The fact that it has a ridiculously high market cap or stock price doesn't mean it'll have the longevity of a General Electric or even Microsoft.

robinson continues, questioning the wisdom of eBay's planned purchase of skype

In my conversations with strutting Skype VCs a few years ago, they admitted the lack of a serious revenue model and when pressed promised that they had one in the works. Just in the works? Well actually they promised, there is one already devised and ready to roll-out. So how does it work then? They refused to elaborate.
In the ensuing two years, I’ve failed to see any genuine - much less successful - revenue models for Skype to make bona fide cash flow a reality; so much for candor. $60 million in revenues an absurdly low some and pretty paltry when your price tag is upwards of $2.3 billion. Now this becomes eBay’s big, expensive problem.

robinson concludes, perhaps overreaching

If this transaction goes bad in a big way, as I believe it will, then look for Whitman to be out on her ear faster than “HP Carly.” AOL Time-Warner will look like a good probability merger by comparison.
Regrettably, this acquisition looks to be the concrete confirmation that in Technology, at least for the time being, the inmates are still in charge of the asylum.

few transactions will rival the idiocy of aol-time warner, but another gold rush mentality appears to have arisen given the success of google.

¶ - nitish @ 12:09 PM