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It depends on what is causing the lack of supply. If the bottleneck lies in factors beyond the control of consumers, i.e. discontinued production, or shortage o
by 10000truths 5y ago
It depends on what is causing the lack of supply. If the bottleneck lies in factors beyond the control of consumers, i.e. discontinued production, or shortage of raw material, then I see no inherent issue with scalping. But if it’s the scalpers themselves that cause an otherwise plentiful supply to become scarce, then they are the cause of the shortage, rather than the effect, and their behavior should be curbed. The problem is that the former situation can easily lead to the latter via a panic buying feedback loop, and it’s not entirely clear where the distinction should be drawn.
- pishpash 5y agoThey could only do that by cornering the market, but if there are many competitive scalpers, then the price is right and that's just normal supply (at the source supplier, not the scalper) and demand.
- esyir 5y agoExcept that your markets are not perfect, your scalpers have overhead and now represent a middleman who wants their cut.
- pishpash 5y agoIf the buyers could participate in a bidding market directly at the supplier, there would be no need for this overhead. The overhead you speak of is the cost of running a liquid market for a particular good where none existed.