BidBud.com - Sniping - Sniper Lite

Sniper Lite		These myths question Snipers committement and desire for the item
6.1	Early bidders are more committed to the item than snipers. Snipers win items from people who want it more and deserve it more than they do. Direct from the land of small price.	Judging who deserves the item more is hard to do. Why should any one person be more deserving of getting something than somebody else? Should the poorest person get the item? The oldest? The youngest? The person who's a member of an ethnic minority? The person who was abused most as a child? I mean no disrespect to anybody who may fall in these groups. Poverty, child abuse and racial oppression are terrible things and I oppose them vigorously. Instead, I use them to illustrate that these kinds of rules would cause all sorts of problems. Should we not have bidding, and just have an eBay committe read everybody's sob story, and simply award each item to the person who, in their view, is the most deserving? Besides, the timing of the bid has nothing to do with how much somebody wants it. Maybe the sniper happened across the item at the last minute, or maybe the sniper knew about the item for days and spent his time researching it to determine the amount of his proxy bid. The only objective measure we have is that of the all mighty dollar. Whoever is willing to pay the most for each item wins. Fair and Square.
6.2	Snipers don't have a sense of community. They don't care for eBay or other bidders. They only want to ruin things for everybody.	Oh, this one hurts! . The sense of community on eBay is apparant on the chat boards. People talk about their lives, share stories, ask questions and give and receive help. Most people on the chat boards are very friendly and snipers go out of their way to be friendly and helpful, except when the same complaints about them keep coming up. When it comes time to bid on auctions, however, all bets are off. When I'm bidding on something, I'm not anybody's friend. I want to win the item, and I don't care who else is bidding on it. Let's suppose that dr.gizmonic, englandboy, tiptie and myself (we're all legendary snipers) are all bidding on the same item. Normally, nobody would know about this, but suppose that we somehow tipped our hand, and revealed our intentions. There would be no love lost. We would all still want the item, and bid the highest we could to win. None of us would ask or give quarter. This myth is basically asking snipers to "take one for the team". That is, we should lose on purpose to make other people feel good. I can turn this around easily and ask why can't the anti-snipers lose on purpose and make ME feel good? In some ways, it's like the National Football League. Many players on opposing teams are good friends. They work charities together, help disadvantaged youth, go on speaking tours together, and so on. However, once they get on the football field, it's war. Their only goal is to win ball games, and if that means making their best friend lose, so be it. eBay is a community and snipers are a very important part of that community. We really are friendly and helpful. Just don't expect that to extend to the auction pages.
6.3	Snipers ignore the auctions and do not participate at all until the very end.	Snipers are in fact VERY involved in the auction the minute they see it and want it. While lowballers are furiously beating each other's brains out in meaningless bidding wars, the sniper is researching the item, checking it out, asking the seller questions and determining their TRUE MAX BID. Just because you can't see the sniper doesn't mean he's not there. He's not bidding as soon as he sees the item, but that's irrelevant since you should not bid until you get all the information you can. I suspect that the root cause of this myth is that people view bidding as the only activity possible regarding an auction. To them, it makes no sense not to bid as soon as you see the item. Also, they assume that anybody who doesn't show their hand as early as possible must not exist.