BidBud.com - Sniping the process

Sniping the process		These myths mainly deal with the action of sniping itself as a physical process, not so much the people who do it
#	Myth	It's not true because...
1.1	Sniping isn't fair because it deprives me of the chance to outbid them. This doesn't happen in "real" or "true" auctions, which let everybody bid until they're satisfied.	Far and away, this is the most common complaint against sniping. Over 90% of the entire arguement against sniping boils down to this one simple statement. Most people, it seems to me, are used to the "Going, Going, Gone" Auction format. They expect eBay to behave exactly like this format, and get suprised, hurt and even angry when this happens. They blame the system and the people who outbid them. They feel cheated, since they would have bid more if they had the chance before the clock ran out. What they fail to realize is that they DO have exactly that chance. eBay mimics this format by their use of the Proxy System. By entering their True Max bid, they are present during the entire auction in spirit. Every time somebody else makes a bid, eBay uses enough of your proxy to retain the lead, and this continues until either you win the auction or are outbid. Using the proxy bid system, you really do get a chance to outbid them, provided you know your true max. It is true that you have to handle things a little bit differently than in a Going, Going Gone auction, but as you will see below, the environment of the eBay auction is fundamentally different, so we must make some adjustments. Remember that the highest bid wins, no matter when it was placed. If my True Max is higher than yours, I'll win whether I bid in the first 10 seconds or the last. If I bid higher than you at the last second, I have not cheated you or stole anything from you. I was just willing to pay more than you. If you believe that you would have bid more given the time, then you should have bid that amount earlier. That's the fundamental nature of the proxy system. You simply put in your last minute bids ahead of time and save them for when they're needed. Since I am a sniper, you can beat me by bidding more than I do before you even know I exist. If this sentence seems odd to you, then you need to learn about proxy bidding and the True Max Bid. Basically, you must determine, in advance, the absolute most that you would ever pay for the item, then bid that. You will either win, or you will lose to somebody you know FOR CERTAIN was willing to pay more than you. It still hurts to lose, but you will have some closure.
1.1 Sub-Myth	Sniping is wrong, because it prevents bid and counter bid. This is the only real way to run auctions, and bidding against each other in realtime is the only way to find my True Max, if it even exists. Many people, more or less directly, but really pushed by eBay users terryl (the first part) and phone-a-holic (the second part).	The first part of this myth is more or less a re-stating of the main 1.1 myth, so I'll just say that with proxy bidding, the increment schedule and the True Max bid, bid and counter bid simply does not and should not apply to eBay, so preventing that effectively prevents nothing. Let's concentrate on the second part. The OP who pushed this idea claimed that there was no such thing as a True Max (see another myth from him below). The only way he could bid was to bid against others in little bits. Then, somehow, he could get a sense of how much he was willing to pay, and that such a process was the ONLY way he could determine what he was willing to pay. I see a lot of problems with this philopsophy. If you're always willing to let others determine your price for you, you could end up paying more than you're willing to. In a fixed-time ending auction, you will lose a lot. Finally, what if you're engaged in an auction with 5 or 6 other people, and they all have the same idea you do? Each one will outbid the others and if they all want to bid just a little more than everybody else, the auction would in theory never end. When I brought that point up, the OP backpedaled and said that in such a situation, he would eventually realize that the price had gone past his limit and he would stop. I contend that this means that the OP does indeed have a True Max, and had one all along. Further, I don't believe that directly bidding against others in real-time is the only way to expose that amount. If you can't use my bidpage directly, then run a pretend auction in your mind. Visualize yourself bidding on the item, and have imaginary opponents. Pretend that each time you bid, one of these imaginary opponents outbids you and that they never stop bidding. Is there an amount that would finally make you pause? If so, that's your True Max, and you should bid that no matter what others are doing in the real world. I suppose there are those that simply cannot do this, and are so emotionally attached to the GGG type of auction and the bid/counter-bid way of doing things that they could never bid in any other way except that. Well, to those people I say, you're gonna lose a lot on eBay, and if that attitude follows you into real life, it won't be pretty there, either.
1.2	eBay is not a "real" or "true" auction, like those in the non-computer world, and that's not fair. Direct from the land of small price.	I blame TV, the one-eyed monster, for this one. the one type of auction that people are most familiar with is the Going, Going, Gone Auction, or GGG. The GGG auction is very controlled. Everybody sits in a room together and bids up in little bits. Everybody bids a little bit at a time until everybody else gives up, and you win. People have usually been invited in advance, they rarely if ever show up late and almost never place bids unless they have been bidding all along. Items are auctioned off in only a few minutes. The GGG auction is the one that we see most often of TV and movies, after all, and most people who join eBay do so knowing that format and nothing else. They skim the rules, but don't really pay attention to them, because in their minds they alreay know what an auction is and how it works, and it does not occur to them that anything could be different. Then, they meet a sniper. In contrast to the GGG auction, eBay is a world-wide 24/7 format. Anybody in the world can drop in and bid, even if they just found out about the item today. Auctions need to run several days so that people can have the time to discover them, do research, and plan their bid. I do not believe that it is reasonable to demand that eBay conform to other auctions that have entirely different circumstances. Even in the non-computer world, there are many different auction formats, some of them timed. Besides Going, Going, Gone, we have Silent Auctions and Sealed Auctions. Anybody can walk up, even in the last second, and drop a bid. The GGG auction is not the only type of auction in the world. There are many types, and each has their own set of rules. eBay is simply another environment, and thus has some different ways in which things are done.
1.3	Sniping is a dishonest way of bidding and it's just like cheating. Direct from the land of small price.	From a strictly legal point of view, this is false, because eBay is set up in such a way that dishonest or invalid bids CANNOT be entered. The only way that bids can be entered into the system is if they are from a registered user and are entered in the established timeframe. Bids also assume that the bidder is willing and able to pay the full amount, if necessary. From a moral point of view, it's still false. If I bid $40.00 at the end of the auction, it's as much of a bid as any other. If I bid $40.00, and I'm willing to pay that much, then it's an honest bid. The timing does not matter. The timing of the bid only affects me. The timing of my bid should not affect anybody else and does not prevent anybody else from bidding whatever they want whenever they want. Every bidder is an entity unto themselves. When you bid, it should not be based on what other people are doing. You should decide your True Max and place a bid whenever you want. When I bid, I'm not doing anything to prevent you from bidding. If I bid more than you did, and you feel cheated, you should have bid more to begin with. This is proxy bidding. This is the heart of eBay. Bidding only when others do is a defensive, reactive strategy and it will not work against sniping. You must bid only what you think you are willing to pay for. This strategy, proxy bidding, is a more offensive and proactive strategy. If other people know the rules and use the system in a superior manner than you do, and win, it's not their fault.
1.4	Snipers wait until the last minute and choke the site with so much bidding and other activity, that honest people can't bid. Contributed by eBay user htbmd (converted!)	eBay's servers are capable of handling a fairly large load of bids, and I can't imagine that even a dozen bids in the last few seconds would prevent any other bids from coming in, and even if that were the case, how would the servers "know" to allow the sniper bids in, and keep out the non-sniping late bidders? The contributor suggested the Gatekeeper Solution as a partial way, but the fact is that this simply can't happen. Further, the snipers would have to act together in a conspiracy, and why would they do that, when the only result would be the raising of the price, as several more bids came in? Besides, if snipe bids prevent your bid from being recorded, then weren't you trying to snipe, too? Barring the Gatekeeper solution, of course. This combination suggests that many anti-snipers do NOT consider a bid a snipe if they have already bid before. As of this writing, I estimate that there are generally no more than 140 bids per second being entered into the eBay bidding system, and that's a pretty high estimate. IMHO, eBay is more than capable of handling this.
1.5	I don't like rational thought or using logic. They both give me intense headaches. I find thinking illogically must more enjoyable. Direct from the land of small price.	This is not really a "Myth", but the logic of this Anti-Sniper speaks for itself. Yes, a well-known anti-sniper actually said this. It was Post 110 of the IDIOTIC ANTI-SNIPER POST OF THE WEEK for Week of May 13 thread on the Bidding Board. This post was entered Wednesday, 16 May, 2001 at 16:06:31 PST. I'd really like to make some clever, sarcastic remark here, but I can't. That comment says it all about the Anti-Sniping philosophy. Note that this does not necessarily capture the attitude of anti-snipers themselves. Most of them are new and do not fully understand the system. About 95% of the time, once the situation is explained to them, they turn around and become full fledged supporters.