eBay is shutting down its San Francisco office and shipping 198 employees south to its San Jose headquarters. The move is yet another entry in the growing ledger of companies deciding that doing business in San Francisco just isn't worth the hassle.

As one local put it best: "Didn't even realize they had an SF office." Fair. eBay's Bay Area identity has always been rooted in San Jose, and a 198-person satellite was never exactly a flagship presence. But the symbolism matters. When companies — even ones with modest footprints — choose to consolidate away from SF rather than into it, that tells you something about the city's competitive position.

And what exactly is that position? San Francisco remains one of the most expensive, most taxed, and most bureaucratically strangled cities in America to operate a business. The office vacancy rate is still hovering at historic highs. City Hall keeps talking about a downtown recovery while doing remarkably little to make the economics actually work for employers. You can only rebrand empty storefronts as "activation spaces" so many times before people notice.

The eBay departure is small in absolute numbers, but it fits a pattern that should alarm anyone who cares about San Francisco's tax base and long-term fiscal health. Every office closure means fewer workers buying lunch downtown, fewer transit riders, and less commercial tax revenue flowing into city coffers — coffers that are already strained by years of spending that would make a drunken sailor blush.

Meanwhile, one former eBay employee offered an even bleaker read on the company's trajectory: "When I left, they were busy moving jobs to India. I thought they would have no office in the US anymore." So maybe San Jose shouldn't celebrate too hard either.

The real question isn't why eBay left San Francisco. It's why any company without deep roots here would choose to stay. Until the city gets serious about reducing costs, cutting red tape, and making itself genuinely competitive — not just "vibes-based" competitive — expect more of these quiet exits. Death by a thousand relocations is still death.