Essentially this is the story -

1. Ebay exists but you have to pay to post items
2. Craigslist is launched and waives the posting an item fee
3. Craigslist hires an ex-Ebay Executive to be on it's Board
4. Ebay sues Craigslist in 2008 for supposedly diluting their stake by roughly 4%
5. Ebay launches Kijiji in order to compete with Craigslist
6. Craigslist sues Ebay for allegedly using it's board seat to gain confidential information to launch Kijiji

That's the story basically. What a freaking mess. Ebay whining about losing to Craigslist and Craigslist whining about Ebay launching their own Classified Site. Why can't they both just be satisfied. In retrospect, Ebay should have just waived the post an item fee. This would have prevented two more than likely expensive lawsuits. Dumb people!

Here's the whole story - http://majorindulgence.com/u/27

http://www.kijiji.com/

Yeah I'm familiar with the ebay/craigslist history.

I think craigslist has kept good on their business model and they only earn revenue from a few select postings (jobs, etc.), which doesn't affect craigslist's core users. Ebay used to charge a commission to the seller for items, but now Paypal takes a chunk too. They are essentially double-dipping and have received backlash from this.