Chief among the the offending changes is the increased final value fee — the percentage of a product’s sale sale price that goes to eBay.

I really appreciated the semantics that eBay used in announcing its fee changes. Their official announcement said they were “reducing the listing fee” and “adjusting the final value fee.”

Power sellers at eBay are understandably upset about the upward-trending final value fee. I don’t actually sell items at eBay, but I send buyers to eBay and make affiliate commissions from their purchases. The fee adjustment wouldn’t affect my bank account very much on its own, but if enough eBay sellers get fed up with eBay and depart for greener auction pasture, I won’t be a happy camper.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy this past few days launching a Boats for Sale site, which focuses exclusively on affordable boats in Florida. That’s a niche need that isn’t met very well by the existing marketing and advertising vehicles, and we hope that the Affordable Boats Online site meets that need for boaters in Florida wo need to buy or sell a boat under $25,000.

According to the article at the International Herald Tribune, the French law prohibits discounting books by more than 5 percent (and Amazon’s free shipment counts as a discount). Supposedly, this law “was meant to assure that the French public had equal access to a wide variety of books, both high-brow and low-brow, not just heavily marked-down publications.”

The French need a a lesson in Econ 101. It doesn’t work that way. Government-imposed price floors most emphatically do not guarantee consumer access to a greater choice of products; rather, they generally result in fewer products and less consumer choice, and at higher prices.

You go, Amazon! I’ve been a satisfied Amazon customer for many years. I might just hop over there right now and buy some more books. Because one can never have too many books. Thanks to Amazon’s great prices and free shipping, I can buy a lot more books than I could if I had to pay artificially inflated prices imposed by the government.