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My personal answer on this question is the later. Price stays the same. Eventually the produced products will get into some people's hands. The only difference
by gtsop 5y ago
My personal answer on this question is the later. Price stays the same. Eventually the produced products will get into some people's hands. The only difference is how much of their money will end up in the seller's pocket. The motivation you have doesn't scale linearly with the amount of money you can spend. Eg you may have very poor people who would make great use of product X and are very motivated, but they can't grt their hands on it because it is too expensive for them. See the health/surgery industry as a great example.
- sokoloff 5y agoThere’s an additional wrinkle in that this choice tends to lead to intermediate sellers who take the latter choice and turn it into the former choice with additional friction and fraud risk (and no additional profit to the producer, which might give them incentive to scale up production to meet the overage of demand.) High end GPUs are readily available on EBay and other secondhand markets and I’ve resorted to buying them there to get them in for ML training machines. (Same with consoles, concert and sporting event tickets, and other limited production, desirable items.)
- quesera 5y agoBut it wouldn't play out that way. If demand exceeds supply, but the manufacturer continues to sell at normal prices, a scalper market opens up. Scalpers capture the difference between manufacturer sale price and market value. That's their business, so they have more time to dedicate to the search for product than the "poor people" who "should" have access to the product. Surgery is not a good example because there is no reseller market there. Medication would be closer but of course med sales are highly regulated. I agree with the point you're getting at though -- access to essential health care should not be financially bifurcated.