5 ms·

That's a central question though. Digi-Key doesn't want to compete on price (potentially because they believe that the price reported isn't an accurate portray

That's a central question though. Digi-Key doesn't want to compete on price (potentially because they believe that the price reported isn't an accurate portrayal of their offering, because of inventory, service, et al). The problem with that is that it doesn't help (actively hinders?) the reduction information costs for the other market participants (Octopart's value as I understand it). Whether this is evil or not depends on what brand of free marketeer you are... One possible way to address this would be to incorporate some kind of a service metric into Octopart, similar to the way that pricewatch evolved.

andres 18y ago
Digi-Key is considered evil because they are trying to kill Octopart in order to preserve their monopoly pricing. They are making the frivolous claim that Octopart is acting illegally when it displays public information and links back to their webpage. Basically, Digi-Key is using their size in order to prevent free market competition in their industry.
- DevinDawson 18y ago
  I need to hear a much stronger case for Digi-Key having monopoly pricing power than just an assertion. Aren't the distributors market shares fairly fragmented (the assumption I'm operating on)? Digi-Key seems to have a large market share because it has built some kind of service reputation. I don't really understand the legal position of scraping (and I'd love to see an accessible semi-authoritative explanation of the current state), but I do read lots of TOS's that basically say that that information is _not_ "public domain". I'm in spiritual agreement with you as to what benefits part buyers the most (I think most people are wise enough to factor in some level of service into cost), but I think it's useful to think about Digi-Key's motivations in more dimensions than just good/evil. Again, I offer the pricewatch feedback/stars as an initial step that might address at least one apparent grievance. Not that that would stop them from fighting you (and good luck on that).
  - andres 18y ago
    In an earlier post, I pointed out some price discrepancies between the electronic parts industry and the consumer electronics industry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168796). This is the evidence that I'm basing my assertion on. Incidentally, this comparison was not possible before Octopart. There is no difference between what Octopart is doing and what Google is doing. Both companies crawl the web and mine their data sets for useful information. Typically, the word "scraping" is used to imply mal intent but I don't think it has a good technical definition.
    - anatoly 18y ago
      Does Octopart honor robots.txt on Digi-Key's site as it crawls it?

andres 18y ago

Digi-Key is considered evil because they are trying to kill Octopart in order to preserve their monopoly pricing. They are making the frivolous claim that Octopart is acting illegally when it displays public information and links back to their webpage. Basically, Digi-Key is using their size in order to prevent free market competition in their industry.

DevinDawson 18y ago
I need to hear a much stronger case for Digi-Key having monopoly pricing power than just an assertion. Aren't the distributors market shares fairly fragmented (the assumption I'm operating on)? Digi-Key seems to have a large market share because it has built some kind of service reputation. I don't really understand the legal position of scraping (and I'd love to see an accessible semi-authoritative explanation of the current state), but I do read lots of TOS's that basically say that that information is _not_ "public domain". I'm in spiritual agreement with you as to what benefits part buyers the most (I think most people are wise enough to factor in some level of service into cost), but I think it's useful to think about Digi-Key's motivations in more dimensions than just good/evil. Again, I offer the pricewatch feedback/stars as an initial step that might address at least one apparent grievance. Not that that would stop them from fighting you (and good luck on that).
- andres 18y ago
  In an earlier post, I pointed out some price discrepancies between the electronic parts industry and the consumer electronics industry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168796). This is the evidence that I'm basing my assertion on. Incidentally, this comparison was not possible before Octopart. There is no difference between what Octopart is doing and what Google is doing. Both companies crawl the web and mine their data sets for useful information. Typically, the word "scraping" is used to imply mal intent but I don't think it has a good technical definition.
  - anatoly 18y ago
    Does Octopart honor robots.txt on Digi-Key's site as it crawls it?