Ebay is great for getting second-hand stuff. We have an alternative to that already and it's decentralized and open source - OpenBazaar. However in my honest opinion Amazon is the better site for new stuff and a lot of my friends use it way more than Ebay. If Amazon adopts Bitcoin it would be a huge push for getting Bitcoin into the mainstream. If someone launches a Bitcoin alternative to Amazon with the scale and plethora of offered products it would be a dream come true.
Well, I'm pretty sure a couple of big time companies accept bitcoin as of right now for some services and goods... Overstock, Microsoft, etc. ... even though when I say "etc.", I've actually ran out of examples. But I'm pretty sure a quick google search of which sites accept bitcoin would be fairly easy.
I think the main point of this thread is
*if* it were to go "mainstream" on Ebay
specifically would it create enough publicity to make Bitcoin "mainstream". The answer is "mehh... idk".
While a lot of people still use Ebay for a lot of things, and also for the fact that I don't personally use it for anything; it's hard for me to tell if Bitcoin being incorporated on there would do any good. It seems to me though, that a lot of people are starting to outsource Ebay for goods they would get on there for Amazon Prime and stuff like that... also, I see people are starting to form small local groups you can hook up with people in your area to sell and trade stuff on Facebook, which would be for free... in which you could also use Craigslist, but that's another topic.
The fact that Ebay's rates are so stupid high is a reason to not use Ebay at all... if Ebay's founders had any sense, they would at least try to cut out some of the fees (especially if they are dealing in paypal) and use Bitcoin. Whether this promotes Bitcoin or not is hard to tell... Seems to be more "ebay stores" selling to people directly than people selling to other people. If some old grandma goes on Ebay to buy something for her grandson on there, she is going to look at that gold BTC symbol and she would have no idea what that is, nor care. If someone does know what it stands for but don't have any, they probably won't take the time to go purchase some because they don't know how too...
Interesting to think of what the possibilities are if it does make it to Ebay though... lots of potential scenarios could come up.