Please let me answer that for you:
NO, EBAY IS NOT BACK ON COURSE! it is on a worse path than ever.
you must be employed by ebay to spew such propaganda and lies! did i see you on spin city?
as for the reduced insertion fees. along with the reduced fees, the final valuation fees have gone up by several times. costing the seller much more than the old fees. thus running the price of items to the buyer up.
ebay says that they are doing these things to help the buyers. NOT TRUE! how can driving the selling price up, be good for the buyer or the seller. the only one profiting from such action, is ebay. lining their pockets and running people away from ebay.
free shipping: anyone that knows business or has any common sense, knows there is no such thing as free. the sellers are jacking up the selling price of the items, to cover the "so called" free shipping. this is what ebay wanted. they get a percentage of the increased selling price, where in the past they could not get a cut off of the s&h fees. this is causing the price of many things to go up on ebay, in many cases higher than they can be bought through brick and mortar. ebays free shipping is costing the buyers more money and costing the sellers, sales. but, ebay is making more per sale. AS YOU YOUR SELF STATED: ON EBAY WE ARE ALL THIRD PARTY SELLERS, EBAY SELLS NOTHING, JUST PUSHES THE SELLERS AROUND. EBAY IS NOT AMAZON AND NEVER WILL BE.
paypal: ebay forcing paypal down both the buyers and the sellers throats, is just another way to pad their pockets. it is not for the protection of anyone. the only time i have ever lost one cent on an ebay sale was through paypal. never a penny from a money order, etc.
free auction fees: if you will check out the final valuation scale on this, you will find that in many instances, the final valuation fees will more than make up for the free insertion and can even cost the seller more than the fixed priced listings.
i have watched as thousands of buyers and sellers alike have been pushed off ebay. sellers that i use to buy from with over 100,000 feedback are now gone. buyers that were regular and repeat buyers, now gone.
i am an ebay power seller, with one of the highest dsr ratings on ebay. since ebay started their insane changes and new polices, my customer count is down, my sales are down by over 50%, my profits are down by almost 70%, my repeat customers are down. the non-paying buyers are up by over 600% and ebay does nothing to help. high dsr's and a drop in the number of feedbacks by approx. 60%. WOW! EBAY ON COURSE! I THINK NOT!
if as ebay would like us to believe, high dsr's is good for everyone, why are my dsr's going up but, my sales and my profits, etc. are falling through the floor? i would gladly give up customer satisfaction rating, to have my customers, my sales, and my profits back!
also, there has been a marked reduction in the number of buyers that now leave feedback. it is a combination of new buyers that do not know the system, old buyer that did know the system are gone but, the biggest reason of all is that there is no incentive for a buyer to leave feedback at all. they know that the seller can only give a positive or nothing and the buyers do not care any more. buyers have also become more rude and demanding, knowing there is nothing sellers can do about and knowing that ebay will do nothing about it.
there are also more and more buyers and some sellers, doing or wanting to do business outside of ebay. this to off set the excessive ebay and paypal fees.
the current feedback system is the most unfair system i have ever seen. sellers are rated on things the do not even have control over and the buyer get away with non-payment, slow payment, abuse, etc. all of this and more due to ebay new policies.
ebay's upper management are fools and people like you help spread their lies and try to spin them into positives.
the truth is that ebay is losing ground and it is their own fault.
ebay and paypal fees are totally out of control. running hundreds of thousands of sellers out of business.
new insurance polices: this is just another way to force sellers to increase their prices, again padding ebays pockets. without insurance and delivery confirmation, ebay is still going to hold the seller responsible for delivery and or damage to the item. again, cost the buyers more in the long run! what a joke!
the current ebay search engine is another joke. you can no longer find the unique items that once made ebay such a great place to be. what was wrong with the old ending soon system. that in fact was the only truly fair system out there. everyone got the same chance. the closer your item came to ending, the more exposure it got. FAIR IS FAIR AND EBAY IS NO LONGER FAIR!
THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT EBAY IS NOW THE MOST UN-FAIR MARKET PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!