Whenever any change involves eBay, you can pretty much assume that it was a money grab by eBay in some form or fashion. While certainly important to the card collecting community, I would be surprised if eBay or Worthpoint either one are concerned or even aware of any "card alteration scandals." I find it more likely that eBay identified the recent spike in interest in sports collectibles as an opportunity to charge more for historic information in that category and/or Worthpoint looked at their users' search utilization for that category and decided the subscription fees no longer justified whatever eBay is charging for that category of data. With the other more-reliable and targeted sources for historic sales information available for sports cards, it seems unlikely that Worthpoint was the go-to source for this information, unlike other antique and collectible categories that do not have such strong third-party support for historic information. That doesn't meant eBay charges any less for that information though, and if they are charging by category (I have no idea how it gets broken down by eBay for third-party access to historic eBay information), it would make sense for Worthpoint and other users to evaluate which categories they/their users utilize most, and only pay for those.
Of course, I could be completely wrong about eBay's pricing schemes for 3rd-party use of historic sales info. If it's one set fee for all categories, for instance, then nothing I said holds water. I guess that's half the fun of conspiracy theories, right?
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