[jan-jaap]

The $3000 "GE" Octane is nothing new. Same for O2's with some magic mainboard revision qualified for MRI machines. $30K "Discreet" Tezro suites have showed up on eBay every once in a while too. They're not aimed at hobbyist and they don't bother me.

What has changed in the last couple of years is the disappearance of the $25 Indy and the $75 Indigo2 Impact. Affordable systems that allow easy entry to hobbyists. But an eBay ban here isn't going to bring them back because they don't exist anymore.

15 or 20 years ago, I would sell a good Indy for 25 or 50 bucks and if it had a cracked case it would go to recycling because nobody wanted it anyway. But once the supply of "good" systems runs out people will buy the cracked Indy because it's still better than nothing at all. And soon you've got people listing "untested" Indigo2's for $300. It raises the bar to enter the hobby, but at least they didn't go to recycling like I probably would have done.

Similarly, lets say I wanted to buy a BMW E39 M5. The one from around Y2K with the V8. 5 or 10 years ago I could have bought one for less than 10K and a nice one for maybe 25K. Today, a half decent one is at least 50K, with nice, low mileage ones closer to 100K. Anything significantly less than that is probably rotted out and wrapped around a tree at least once. It didn't take eBay for this to happen. It's people who were young when these came out and lusted after them back then that now have money to spend and fight over whatever remains

In the end it's all a matter of supply and demand.