For followers of correct Ebay, a strong sense of déjà vu hung over Monday’s news that the world’s biggest e-commerce company had agreed to pay a large premium to buy Skype, which carries voice calls over the internet.

Five years ago, Wall Street was sceptical about Ebay’s interest in PayPal, a small online payments company with little in the way of a business model, says Youssef Squali, an internet analyst at Jeffries.