I agree with you on the Facebook aspect(even though Facebook is a sinking ship)but Amazon is really similar to Ebay in a lot of ways, which is why they could easily copy Ebay and make it seem like a feasible strategy.
I knew that Ebay owned Paypal, but didn't knew that Ebay had the intention of separating from Paypal, in means of making Paypal an independent company. This is quite surprising news, and I don't know what they intend to achieve with this decision, but it seems they've got something planned already. You dont' take such decision without having a working plan.
