ABSTRACT
“Community” is a key term in the eBay universe. The company overview of eBay Australia boldly proclaims it as “the world’s largest personal online trading community,” 1 and the theme of community is central within the history of the company as described by Adam Cohen. 2 Within developer Pierre Omidyar’s conceptualization of the auction site was a pragmatic notion of using community members to take over the support work generally done by a company’s employees and thus reduce his efforts and costs. But underlying its development was also an ideal typical of early internet culture in both commercial and nonprofit arenas: the ideal of a perfect community, based on a social contract, where people made real connections with each other. 3
