Final Rating: 4/5
Whatever It Takes, directed by Jenny Carchman, is a gripping true-crime documentary centred around the 2019 stalking scandal of Ina and David Steiner.
In August of 2019, the Steiner’s, who run the e-commerce blog EcommerceBytes, became the subject of a terrifying harassment campaign over their websites’ less-than-glowing coverage of eBay. Over three weeks, the couple were sent suspicious packages, stalked, and doxxed on Twitter. What could drive a small but dedicated group of troublemakers to ruin the Steiners’ lives? EcommerceBytes was a site originally designed to help eBay sellers, which had grown in scope but never deviated from that initial mission. Their biggest enemy, the film suggests, might have been eBay themselves.
Though the harassment campaign lasted only three weeks, the wealth of documentation kept by the Steiner’s makes the truly life-altering scope of events clear. At first it was Twitter DMs, then public posts, then packages with horror movie props, then packages of live bugs, midnight pizza deliveries, and bogus Craigslist listings sending uninvolved strangers to their house. In a particularly devious sequence of events, David Steiner received a book on dealing with the loss of a spouse, followed the next day by a funeral wreath.
In the hands of director Jenny Carchman, Whatever excels both at shocking and informing. Carchman metes out details to maximize the effectiveness of the mystery, cleverly working in context to build a complete picture of not only the Steiner’s, but also the history of eBay as a company.
EcommerceBytes as a site, we learn, had a good relationship with eBay until 2008, Ina having even interviewed the CEO and co-founder. The story of the Steiner’s, it turns out, is a convenient gateway to a story of corporate changeover at eBay. Interviews with early eBay employees paint a picture of a small, community-minded organization serving as a much-needed hub for niche entrepreneurs. But over time, as focus shifts from connections to profits, early eBay employees become former eBay employees. The younger generation Carchman interviews are markedly more cynical, with no passion for – or even knowledge of – eBay’s original vision.
To hear eBay co-founder Jeffrey Skoll tell it, the site was founded on the idea that people are inherently good. Initially, eBay encouraged a social environment with sellers interacting and trusting one another, with sites like EcommerceBytes assisting in that mission by empowering and informing the emerging community. A later interview with a former eBay employee perfectly illustrates what the site looks like in 2019: “Did you know that the original guiding principle of eBay was that people are inherently good?” Carchman asks, only to be met with a laugh and “yeah, well I never met him.”
Whatever starts as a curious story of a bizarre but horrific true crime, but quickly spins into a story of how late-stage capitalism inevitably fails the people who should excel within it. Even the most well-intentioned endeavour, forced to grow endlessly, must eventually replace all its parts, those original intentions included. Whatever shows the collateral damage as time, money, and infinite growth inevitably leads a company to destroy everything it thinks it stands for.
Whatever It Takes was seen during the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival. Check out our Hot Docs wrap up podcast.
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