Entitlement isn't an issue. It's about the model.

Any merchant platform is by definition a network good. More users is unambiguously better. That's why eBay is superior to bob's auction blog. Even if bob's blog is perfect as a platform, with fewer users, it is still objectively inferior.

If you and your cohorts want to keep this place a niche den for elitist types by all means carry on. That's self punishing because you're only doing eachother a disservice via opportunity cost. Your costs will be higher, your profits will be lower, your volume will be thinner, and your selection will be narrower. Have fun.

If you can do well here then the opportunity cost is even more staggering unless you're only here to liquidate a supply of keys or whatever you are getting from some other source incidentally.

But then again, knowing the market here will be distorted because of those unwise polices (no auction, paywall on new sellers,) pure liquidators are motivated to look elsewhere unless they are fine with just taking a loss in terms of time or price. But again even if you're ok with the artificially depressed participation rate of the community and you're cool with taking a hit on price and time, the lack of an auction function only exacerbates the problem.

How so? Let's say I list an item for some price. If I price it just right for the world market it is less likely to sell here or I'll take a loss here because of market distortion caused by depressed participation. (Prices at bob's auction will not match prices on eBay.) If I price it just right for here it sells, but same thing, I took a loss relative to it's actual value to the rest of the world. It it doesn't sell on the other hand I'm also out time and opportunity cost because I couldn't trade it while it was in my inventory here.

With an auction I could at least liquidate quickly without having to know what to price everything at. Demanding that I be an appraiser to use the selling platform for a distorted market is just too much. The only real winner here is the owner of the platform, but even they aren't making as much money as they could.

Skilled trader types generally would be much better served to deploy these skills in something like the commodities market.

If anyone is being entitled it's the platform owners for wanting to double dip with a percentage and a gatekeeper fee while also be paid up front. But again this is self punishing. If they'd rather make higher profit per unit (seller) rather than make ten times or more the net profit on percentages, well that's just great.

The vast majority of people are going to by the very nature of their inexperience conclude paying that fee is a bad investment, unless they already have so much money that they have no real need of the service or they are as I said deploying an interest in the market metagame in the entirely wrong area of commerce.

Now, there might be an arbitrage opportunity here because of the distortion, and day trade options as with any other market, but again if you have that kind of skill you should be doing it with currency or something and making orders of magnitude more money per hour invested.

Bottom line: If the objective is a strong merchant community, they should not put basic selling behind a paywall and they definitely need an auction component.

But whatever, I guess I'm just being entitled. >.>

Thanks for the alternative service suggestions.