There was no mechanism to take easy payment via credit card for the eBay hobbyist. Enter PayPal. Sellers on eBay simply asked buyers to “PayPal” them the payment for a successful auction to their email address. PayPal would withdraw the funds from one, and forward to the other. Among the eBay community, PayPal quickly generated a strong network effect: the more sellers asked to be paid via PayPal, the more buyers were incentivized to sign up for a PayPal account, and vice versa.
