Why were investors so excited about Ebay & Paypal, a 25 year old company ?


Please help me to what do I not understand?

I've been using Ebay for 24 years now. Amazon and Etsy grew for the last 10 years. Last 5 years, FB Marketplace had to eat into the action, also. I believe Alibaba also become more popular for certain goods. Also, many boutique sites for certain products like Swappa. I still use Ebay, but is Ebay growing much anymore ? For 16 years, from 2004 to 2020, Ebay price was almost flat. $25 to $30 in 16 years. Ebay was never cool. Ebay had a marketing problem from 1998, which was perception of only used goods.

I've been using Paypal for 20 years. Is not Paypal is basically Ebay payments, and EBay is old school. I never used Paypal outside of Ebay. When Ebay spun it back off in 2015. who was excited about this old technology? Paypal is now almost 25 years old. Venmo has grown for p2p payments, but is an unprofitable arm of Paypal. Is the growth of Venno the entire bull case for Paypal?

Both seem a mature company with saturated markets. Should Ebay and Paypal trade at growth PE? Or like a utility or bank? Yet, Paypal was a 10-bagger going from $30 to $300, and now back to $100. Is Ebay & Paypal still growing?

What was the bull case for Paypal since 2015?


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