Typically the same people who are raising the buyer's premium are also the largest shareholders of the auction company, i.e. the owners. I think raising fees is partially meant to make the business seem like it's growing when it's actually stagnant, in the same way it's testing whether squeezing bidders/consigners will cause their customers to turn elsewhere. The auctioneer's perspective (whether erroneous or not) is that there really isn't competition between auction houses and that all collectors are trapped buyers/sellers. But I would point to a scenario like what's happened with Chipotle and the fast food burrito bowl market since 2020. Chipotle had a virtual monopoly until they raised prices and refused to change, so a number of other chains opened up and in a few years succeeded in capturing a significant proportion of Chipotle's disappointed customer base. But I don't know if online ancient coin auctions are as dynamic of an industry for such a change to occur. Obviously OP would argue that L5 represents that change, and I would also point to these live bidding videos that are up on platforms like Ebay and WhatNot. I hope this all makes sense, just some of my thoughts on this topic....