Yopu're welcome.

Now, I have no idea how many people eBay employ, but I am guessing a fair few, yes?

Just look here at eBay Australia.

This chat board is serviced by Lithium software. So there is a fee for the software.

I don't know if that inckludes the wages for the moderators of these boards, so either the software costs enough to cover their wages and provide the other services (data mining etc) or eBay pays the moderators.

There are 6 of those that I know of (there might be more.)

There is joanna the eBay rep who comes to the boards

There is at least one person who answers the phiones in the phillipines when we ring the servixce centre.

That's 8 there at lets say $50,000 p/a each in wages, => $400,000 just in that.

That's not counting the staff at their sydney office, or all the other legals, accountants, site technicians, PA's, account managers, trust and safety, managers of programs like Vero etc...

so even though they probably earn billions, there are a fair few wage costs alone.