I'm not sure what the world is coming to when I agree with Archie , but I think you keep missing his point, Pete. "If everyone did that up front" is not the real world. In the real world, somebody out there will keep changing his mind about what the maximum he's willing to bid if he sees I've bid more. If I bid my max up front, I give everybody the opportunity to change their minds, until I'm outbid. If I snipe, I deprive them of that opportunity, and force them to play the proxy game or lose. Of course, if two other people play the bid and rebid game enough, I may see that there's no need to snipe when it passes my max. But I don't want to be in the rebid war.

EBay sets the rules. I just plays the game. I happens to think I'm good at it .