If this is true, then why do more people use EBay, etc?

Is it only their marketing power, or perhaps something about the platform better?

Not trying to be confrontational, just interested in finding out why.

> If this is true, then why do more people use EBay

To be honest Ebay, just like Craigslist, didn't change much in the last 20 years.

If you want to take a lot of a thousand products from aliexpress and sell them globally on the internet, ebay is your platform. If you want to sell something of yours locally or rent a local apartment, craigslist is your platform. These platforms reflect these usages when you browse them. Local results from people who just want to move a single item in their home vs some global drop shipping arbitrage opportunity will always be of higher quality.

> Local results from people who just want to move a single item in their home vs some global drop shipping arbitrage opportunity will always be of higher quality.

Sometimes you want one of those Chinese paper cutters, or reasonably priced leather tools. Ebay is mostly good, despite itself. They've also barely changed the UI in my memory, and I've got a 20 year old account.

I will agree on that. If I want a random thing, there will be the same product dropped shipped on both sites but usually ebay comes out a few dollars cheaper.

eBay is still useful for finding obscure, secondhand objects. The geographical reach is an asset vs Craigslist.

eBay is my main shopping site. If a vendor doesn't maintain their own web store I usual can find it on eBay. The eBay vendor may have their own web store and I use that.

Ebay's platform has a seller/buyer protection system i.e., seller ratings etc. CL is a hands-off platform.