eBay hasn’t disappeared or gone bankrupt; it’s still a major online marketplace, but it has changed a lot since its early 2000s peak and feels very different to many long‑time users. In 2025 it is actually celebrating its 30th anniversary, reporting billions in quarterly revenue and rolling out new AI and live‑commerce features, even while some sellers and buyers complain that “old eBay” is gone.

What eBay is like now

  • eBay remains a global marketplace with quarterly revenue around the mid‑single‑digit billions of dollars and gross merchandise volume above 20 billion dollars, so it is still very much alive as a business.
  • Leadership talks about reshaping the platform around enthusiasts (collectibles, motors, fashion) and using AI to improve search, listing, and messaging, rather than trying to be everything for everyone.

Key changes users notice

  • Long‑time users say the site feels more corporate and policy‑heavy, with things like stricter content rules in listings, more standardized templates, and frequent interface changes that make it feel less like the old “flea‑market” eBay.
  • On forums, many small sellers complain about aggressive fee structures, constant feature experiments, and shifts like “simplified” delivery options or layout revamps that can hurt their sales and then get partially rolled back.

Why some people say “eBay is dying”

  • Criticism often focuses on the loss of the quirky auction‑driven, garage‑sale style marketplace as eBay leaned into big brands, buy‑it‑now, and more Amazon‑like policies, which makes it feel like a “shell of what it used to be” to nostalgic users.
  • Sellers on discussion boards argue that repeated policy shifts, stricter enforcement, and bugs or performance issues push them toward alternatives like specialized collectible sites, TikTok Shop, Whatnot, or local apps, feeding the “eBay is dying” narrative even though the company’s financials show continued activity and recent growth.

What’s new recently (2024–2025 flavor)

  • eBay has been investing heavily in AI: tools that suggest or auto‑generate listing titles and descriptions, AI‑driven messaging support, and APIs that help big sellers bulk‑create optimized listings.
  • It is also pushing live shopping (eBay Live), fashion initiatives like “Endless Runway,” and collaborations around resale with big brands, all aimed at younger shoppers and at categories like collectibles, luxury, and pre‑loved fashion where eBay still has strong communities.

How to think about “what happened”

  • From a business perspective, eBay evolved into a more focused, mature e‑commerce company that is still profitable and investing in new tech and categories.
  • From a community perspective, many early users feel that the platform’s constant policy changes, higher friction for small sellers, and shift away from a free‑wheeling auction culture mean that “what happened to eBay” is less a collapse and more a transformation that left some of its original fans behind.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.