eBay Item № 151990485080

Whenever I buy on eBay, it’s always a small relief when the actual purchased item shows up at my door instead of a bunch of photos of said item. Now, it’s not like that situation has ever actually happened to me—and online shopping is not exactly breaking news—and whereas I have no such concern with Amazon, there’s just something about eBay that hints such a switcheroo could be possible.

With that in mind, please direct your attention to eBay item number 151990485080. For sale, a complete printed copy of the source code of the listing page.

Most meta indeed.

Most meta indeed.

The winning bidder will receive a printed copy of all Html, Css, Javascript, images, XHRs, Json, and so on found on the completed auction’s listing page. The source code will be taken from a clean browser session (no cookies for you) and sampled about minute after the page is initially loaded. All this paper will go into a manilla envelope and be shipped to you, for you do with as you wish (I personally suggest scanning it into a computer and viewing the result in a web browser).

To keep this little experiment free from economic motivation, I’ll be donating any profits from the auction to the American Refugee Committee. Being a refugee sucks, and this charity has high ratings for making it suck somewhat less. Again, minus eBay’s 10% cut and Paypal’s 30 cents + 2.9% fee, the rest goes to the American Refugee Committee as part of the auction agreement. Now, here’s hoping that we can donate more than 50 cents, but even that may be too optimistic.

Bidding starts at 99 cents. Free shipping!