Ron,
The sellers were using negative feed back when the buyers left negative feedback on the sellers. By eliminating that, the buyers don't worry about retaliation when they have a bad seller and they are hoping the buyers will leave a truer picture of the seller. If you have someone who doesn't pay, you can re list and sell. If you have someone who doesn't sell, Ebay has the hassle of trying to get your money back, along with trying to prosecute the scamers who can be anywhere in the world.
It has been reported in the media and particularly by consumer advocate, Clark Howard that ebay's business has fallen off recently and that the number of items not selling or sold has increased dramatically. Ebay's revenues have suffered due to relistings that they currently don't charge for. So they are restructuring their fee schedule to try and increase their revenue stream. The local options, Craig's List and others have seen an increase in listings and sales. Probably due to the fact they deal mainly with local listings. When sold to the people "in the neighborhood", the follow through is much higher. There also was an increase on Ebay in the number of sellers who were "selling nothing but smoke" and were only trying to get your money. The local markets make that more difficult to pull off, as you can meet and exchange in a lot of cases.
Bill
