Well thats simply a first to the market problem. Claiming all other competitors tried and failed is kind of misleading to me I guess. The only advantage ebay had was that they were first.
There were others before ebay. Ebay just did a lot of things right, at the right time.
IMO thought they are going a lot of bad things now and really fucking over the buyers. ebay lost the "internet auction" idea a long time ago.