Equitable being that I can get the outbid notice and be able to make a move if I was willing to pay more. Sometimes I will put my max price in, sometimes I'd be willing to go a little higher - a lot of it depends on what it is.

I've went through a string of auctions where I was the high bidder for 5 days only to get sniped within a minute. Can't complain cause I've done it as well.

Sure I could have re-sniped, sure I could have put in a higher bid from the beginning, but why put i n a max bid if I can get it for less.

But this way I can get the outbid notice (I get them via SMS on my cell phone, but there is still a level of network latency) and have enough time to get to a computer (I have 4 of them in the house) and make a re-bid.

So equitable means, its better for the seller (he potentially can make more money via a bidding war) or for the non-sniper (who may get a chance to rebid) but more importantly, its better for ebay (and its stockholders) who make more on a higher end price.