I've been on ebay since 1997 and collected everything from comics to sports cards to Hot WHeels and Star Wars, and eventually, I've sold them all off. When ebay was young, it felt more like a community as well, but now it's all about fees and profit, so I went from buying and selling 200-300 items per year to about 5 per year. Now I do all my trading, selling, and buying on forums like AA, DP, RFGen, and a few others because it does have that "community" feel and I don't feel like I'm supporting some scumbag scalper who buys all the clearanced games from Target and throws them on ebay to make a quick profit.
The stories and reasons behind the sales make you feel like you know the person, the way buying from a favorite local mom and pop game store makes you feel better than buying the same game from Best Buy or Game Stop. It's the same game, maybe even the same price, but you feel like you are making a difference in someone's life at the smaller more friendly shop.