Hidden counters are useful if you do not want the competition or your potential customers to see how many hits your item is getting. I sold 1 item a few months back on a 7day listing and received over 5,000 hits! I had people emailing me just asking why so many people were looking at my auction and if I could tell them how to get more people to look at their auctions. I do use hiddens occasionally from eBay and then make my sellathon hidden also and cannot view it because I do not pay for the sellathon features.