Rubenerd

The biggest problem with eBay is the rhemes of accessories, cases, chargers, adaptors and other junk that appears for something, rather than the thing itself. The signal to noise ratio is extreme.

Say you’re doing a search on eBay for a vintage computer. This is what you’ll get:

• Vintage computer
• 100× useless junk listings (chargers, adaptors, cases)
• Vintage computer of similar build
• 100× useless junk listings (chargers, adaptors, cases)

Then you begin filtering out the crap. So your search query for “vintage computer” starts looking like this:

vintage computer -for -mAh -64mo -cq56 -frame -memoria -speicher -modules -battery -latch -transport -“mémoire” -batterie -batteria -battery -supply -laptop -pour -adaptador -caricatore -goddamnit

You can also do saved searches and block out the most egregious listing spammers, but that doesn’t scale. And an update from 2020: They come with their own irrelevant junk.

I’ve got to think there’s a better way. Maybe it’s time to write a Greasemonkey script, assuming people still do that.