How eBay built a new world on little more than trust

>> The solution was to ask buyers and sellers to rate one another and to make those ratings public.

As I understand it, eBay feedback is now one-way. A seller can't leave a negative rating for a buyer.

How are Feedback scores calculated?

For each transaction, buyers and sellers can choose to rate each other by leaving Feedback. Buyers can leave a positive, negative, or a neutral rating, plus a short comment. Sellers can leave a positive rating and a short comment.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/howitworks.html

Ebay was founded in 1995 and it is hard to remember what the internet was like back then. It democratized retail purchases so that everyone can buy and sell. In many ways, I would agree with this article's viewpoint that eBay was a precursor to uber and airbnb. A very early precursor since smartphones had to proliferate before we could open an app and email hosts while on the go.

>> The solution was to ask buyers and sellers to rate one another and to make those ratings public.

So it isn't trust but social control.

What's the state-of-the-art in these kinds of systems in terms of one that's easy to use and makes it easier to eliminate effects of malicious feedback?