4 ms·

It's odd to me that so many of this kind of thing takes a moral stance and uses comments like "making someone pay" for things like concert tickets or gaming con

It's odd to me that so many of this kind of thing takes a moral stance and uses comments like "making someone pay" for things like concert tickets or gaming consoles. I'm not for scalping, by any means, but to claim that it harms the consumer is just weird. The vendor is clearly leaving money on the table, but if you're willing pay 4x to not have to wait a few months...that's just market forces. The exceptions are forced buyers--but we're not talking critics meds here.

musicale 6y ago
> to claim that it harms the consumer is just weird It harms the consumers who would otherwise have been able to buy the item without paying a ridiculous premium. In the case of something like concert tickets, it often harms younger and poorer fans.
- biren34 6y ago
  I get that it's frustrating and pisses people off. But "not being able to afford things you really want" is not really an economic harm in any serious sense of the concept, especially when it comes to the kinds of things are generally scalped in America. In general, the way our society has chosen to distribute limited goods is through an auction, and poorer people generally lose auctions. The reason we do it this way is because the auction price signal then tells the whole world that more of X is needed. This works really well for things where: 1. Buyer and seller have alternatives 2. There is sufficient legally allowed competitions 3. And supply CAN respond to price signals And it always involves pricing some people out of the market (for at least some period of time) to direct the resources to those that can pay the most while supply responds to the price signal. To complain about "harm" in this setting, you also have to say that people who can't afford 4karat diamond rings are "harmed" or that people who can't afford penthouse NYC apartments are "harmed". If the vendor and customer want to engage in a different, non-auction based method of choosing who gets to buy things, they're totally free to do it. Modern technology actually makes that incredibly easy now. Again, I'm not arguing FOR scalping. It's just so strange that people demonize scalpers for doing something every business in America does. If anything, the vendors are being lazy about thinking the problems through and scapegoating scalpers for taking advantage of the inefficiencies that arise.

musicale 6y ago

> to claim that it harms the consumer is just weird It harms the consumers who would otherwise have been able to buy the item without paying a ridiculous premium. In the case of something like concert tickets, it often harms younger and poorer fans.

biren34 6y ago
I get that it's frustrating and pisses people off. But "not being able to afford things you really want" is not really an economic harm in any serious sense of the concept, especially when it comes to the kinds of things are generally scalped in America. In general, the way our society has chosen to distribute limited goods is through an auction, and poorer people generally lose auctions. The reason we do it this way is because the auction price signal then tells the whole world that more of X is needed. This works really well for things where: 1. Buyer and seller have alternatives 2. There is sufficient legally allowed competitions 3. And supply CAN respond to price signals And it always involves pricing some people out of the market (for at least some period of time) to direct the resources to those that can pay the most while supply responds to the price signal. To complain about "harm" in this setting, you also have to say that people who can't afford 4karat diamond rings are "harmed" or that people who can't afford penthouse NYC apartments are "harmed". If the vendor and customer want to engage in a different, non-auction based method of choosing who gets to buy things, they're totally free to do it. Modern technology actually makes that incredibly easy now. Again, I'm not arguing FOR scalping. It's just so strange that people demonize scalpers for doing something every business in America does. If anything, the vendors are being lazy about thinking the problems through and scapegoating scalpers for taking advantage of the inefficiencies that arise.