In 1995, Pierre Omidyar founded eBay, an online auction platform that transformed the way people buy and sell goods. This innovative website enabled peer-to-peer transactions, fostering a new era of e-commerce and entrepreneurship. eBay's success exemplified the potential of the internet to create new markets and connect individuals across the globe.

Online auctions changed ideas of value, collecting, nostalgia, scarcity, and the circulation of books, recordings, manuscripts, and cultural objects. Poets like Anne Carson and Kenneth Goldsmith began to explore themes of digital culture and the commodification of art in their works.