power to the eBay people

As a frequent eBay seller and buyer, I can attest to the fact that this "straight-auction format" site, as Epley alludes to in his article, is very efficient because of its fair value mystique.  Consumers who cannot confer to retail price have access to a place such as eBay that feeds their demand, both in availability-of-product and budget.  People have an outlet to not only buy current retail items at a lower price, but also have passage to discontinued items that have not seen retail shelves for many years.  Another way that makes eBay dynamic is that it allows artists and entrepreneurs to sell their product and helping them establish a name.  Ebay is not only then fair market, in terms of candid price and availability, it is also artisan. 

What becomes apparent in critiquing a dynamic inception such as eBay is its power and authority.  Epley mentioned in his article that "Ebay, then, enjoys increasing authority as an arbiter of price." (I refer to Epley's article more for the fact that he looks more in depth at the cultural aspect of eBay and how it has become a cultural and user-generated phenomenon.) The term arbiter is indicating that eBay users can mediate the price and be the judge of its description, its duration, and its geographic availability. Ben Parker said it best..."With great power, comes great responsibility," as stated in the Spiderman movies.