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> I figured it was the right kind of entrepreneurship to support You're supporting a scalper. You're teaching him that there's money to be made by positioning

> I figured it was the right kind of entrepreneurship to support You're supporting a scalper. You're teaching him that there's money to be made by positioning yourself as a middle man. There's no value creation here, just value extraction.

nawgz 5y ago
[flagged]
voakbasda 5y ago
Value extraction is what all the big tech companies do. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.
yepguy 5y ago
That would only be true if there were actually enough PS5's to go around, but the scalpers bought them all up anyway. There's real value in the products actually being available to buy at all, and the only reason they're available is because they're being resold at a higher price.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  They were also available to buy before the scalpers bought them - that's how they bought them. The scalpers injecting themselves as middle men didn't change anything except the price.
  - yepguy 5y ago
    No that's wrong. If you have $850 right now you can buy a PS5. If nobody on earth marked up the price, you wouldn't be able to buy one for any amount (without getting very lucky or expending a lot of effort to find one).
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
      There were N ps5’s and there are still N ps5’s. The only change is from first come first serve to a market price. Without those scalpers, those units that you can buy today would already be owned by end users. Instead they’re sitting with the scalpers.
      - yepguy 5y ago
        Yep, in other words they are now available to buy. So availability increased without having to increase supply.
        6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        You’re completely ignoring the people who would otherwise have them. It’s less available to them and more available to those you’re talking about. It’s zero sum, at best.
        yepguy 5y ago
        I don't think I'm ignoring anyone, but I really like living in a society where goods are actually available for purchase. All I'm saying is that that's such a good thing that it counts as value added by the scalpers. There are maybe a couple issues obscuring my point, though. First, there's a sense that scalpers are illegitimate and cheating the system. If Sony were to raise the MSRP themselves, or retailers did it instead, most of the anger and complaints would disappear. Honestly, they should absolutely raise the price. Scalpers are making the market function better in this case, because the "official" outlets are not doing their jobs. Second, most people in the West are not used to thinking about real scarcity and what it means. (If there was a terrible coffee shortage, you might be happy to find a guy who will sell you a cup for $20.)
        colinmhayes 5y ago
        This is how the economy works. Scarce resources cost more money. Setting price ceilings just mean the people who are willing to pay the most can't get the item.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The only solution is the building plague.
young_unixer 5y ago
Isn't that the fault of Sony for selling them at a lower price than what people are willing to pay? And the value being provided is the possibility of buying the PS5. Even without scalpers, chances are that someone else would have bought it. Scalping only works when the demand is very high compared to the supply.
- vmception 5y ago
  correct, the market has been saying for multiple years that the MSRP is wrong, for anything with GPU accelerate compute time.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    We are basically seeing self imposed price controls and everyone knows that price ceilings cause shortages.
  - cbozeman 5y ago
    Yeah, go explain that to a 40 year old Mom or Dad, who are buying one for their 10-15 year old child to play a video game.
    - vmception 5y ago
      The console is worth around $750, this would match the inflation adjusted price of home entrainment consoles for the last 40 years If its out of the budget they’ll have to do something else, that doesn’t even need to be explained
vmception 5y ago
This neglects the demand side. PS5's are purchased between $700 and $1,000. PS5's aren't the only device with premium. Used cars have an unprecedented premium, alongside all GPUs. The market is saying that semiconductors, especially GPU accelerated compute time is worth this much. You can point at miners, you can point at scalpers, you neglect that every cloud compute and cloud gaming provider is building massive data centers full of GPUs as fast as they can get their hands on them at a premium too. It doesn't take a free market libertarian to observe that its the MSRP that's wrong.
- MegaButts 5y ago
  I'm not arguing people aren't willing to pay more. I'm pointing out that the scalper is providing nothing of value to anyone but himself. You can apply your same logic to healthcare, because people are always willing to pay more. It's the cornerstone of the US healthcare system. I'm discussing ethics and you're discussing economics. The problem is this obsession with finding arbitrage to extract value from the system, which is the entire point of your comment where you're defending the market because someone can profit from it without actually providing any value. I'd like to live in a world that isn't full of selfish assholes trying to fuck everyone else over all the time. I understand market dynamics just fine - I got rich from it and I'm a shittier person for it.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Okay, let's discuss ethics. I don't see or have an ethical problem with this. Scalpers are taking a risk, if the supply was greater they lose, if the supply becomes greater before they can move their inventory then they lose. The supply is not greater. It is an amoral reality. > I'd like to live in a world that isn't full of selfish assholes trying to fuck everyone else over all the time. I understand market dynamics just fine - I got rich from it and I'm a shittier person for it. It is not possible to live in a market based economy and fulfill that desire. It is very easy for me to accept that. Demand for the asset simply has to dry up. It has not. People that want a PS5 can get one, at the available price. Scalpers are providing liquidity, you provided liquidity. Individual owners would be removing liquidity, likely causing greater premium in price to let one go and further hoops to jump through.
imwillofficial 5y ago
Most of the flow of money in the world passes through many layers of middle men.

nawgz 5y ago

[flagged]

voakbasda 5y ago

Value extraction is what all the big tech companies do. Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.

yepguy 5y ago

That would only be true if there were actually enough PS5's to go around, but the scalpers bought them all up anyway. There's real value in the products actually being available to buy at all, and the only reason they're available is because they're being resold at a higher price.

burntoutfire 5y ago
They were also available to buy before the scalpers bought them - that's how they bought them. The scalpers injecting themselves as middle men didn't change anything except the price.
- yepguy 5y ago
  No that's wrong. If you have $850 right now you can buy a PS5. If nobody on earth marked up the price, you wouldn't be able to buy one for any amount (without getting very lucky or expending a lot of effort to find one).
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    There were N ps5’s and there are still N ps5’s. The only change is from first come first serve to a market price. Without those scalpers, those units that you can buy today would already be owned by end users. Instead they’re sitting with the scalpers.
    - yepguy 5y ago
      Yep, in other words they are now available to buy. So availability increased without having to increase supply.
      - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        You’re completely ignoring the people who would otherwise have them. It’s less available to them and more available to those you’re talking about. It’s zero sum, at best.
        yepguy 5y ago
        I don't think I'm ignoring anyone, but I really like living in a society where goods are actually available for purchase. All I'm saying is that that's such a good thing that it counts as value added by the scalpers. There are maybe a couple issues obscuring my point, though. First, there's a sense that scalpers are illegitimate and cheating the system. If Sony were to raise the MSRP themselves, or retailers did it instead, most of the anger and complaints would disappear. Honestly, they should absolutely raise the price. Scalpers are making the market function better in this case, because the "official" outlets are not doing their jobs. Second, most people in the West are not used to thinking about real scarcity and what it means. (If there was a terrible coffee shortage, you might be happy to find a guy who will sell you a cup for $20.)
        colinmhayes 5y ago
        This is how the economy works. Scarce resources cost more money. Setting price ceilings just mean the people who are willing to pay the most can't get the item.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The only solution is the building plague.

young_unixer 5y ago

Isn't that the fault of Sony for selling them at a lower price than what people are willing to pay? And the value being provided is the possibility of buying the PS5. Even without scalpers, chances are that someone else would have bought it. Scalping only works when the demand is very high compared to the supply.

vmception 5y ago
correct, the market has been saying for multiple years that the MSRP is wrong, for anything with GPU accelerate compute time.
- imtringued 5y ago
  We are basically seeing self imposed price controls and everyone knows that price ceilings cause shortages.
- cbozeman 5y ago
  Yeah, go explain that to a 40 year old Mom or Dad, who are buying one for their 10-15 year old child to play a video game.
  - vmception 5y ago
    The console is worth around $750, this would match the inflation adjusted price of home entrainment consoles for the last 40 years If its out of the budget they’ll have to do something else, that doesn’t even need to be explained

vmception 5y ago

This neglects the demand side. PS5's are purchased between $700 and $1,000. PS5's aren't the only device with premium. Used cars have an unprecedented premium, alongside all GPUs. The market is saying that semiconductors, especially GPU accelerated compute time is worth this much. You can point at miners, you can point at scalpers, you neglect that every cloud compute and cloud gaming provider is building massive data centers full of GPUs as fast as they can get their hands on them at a premium too. It doesn't take a free market libertarian to observe that its the MSRP that's wrong.

MegaButts 5y ago
I'm not arguing people aren't willing to pay more. I'm pointing out that the scalper is providing nothing of value to anyone but himself. You can apply your same logic to healthcare, because people are always willing to pay more. It's the cornerstone of the US healthcare system. I'm discussing ethics and you're discussing economics. The problem is this obsession with finding arbitrage to extract value from the system, which is the entire point of your comment where you're defending the market because someone can profit from it without actually providing any value. I'd like to live in a world that isn't full of selfish assholes trying to fuck everyone else over all the time. I understand market dynamics just fine - I got rich from it and I'm a shittier person for it.
- vmception 5y ago
  Okay, let's discuss ethics. I don't see or have an ethical problem with this. Scalpers are taking a risk, if the supply was greater they lose, if the supply becomes greater before they can move their inventory then they lose. The supply is not greater. It is an amoral reality. > I'd like to live in a world that isn't full of selfish assholes trying to fuck everyone else over all the time. I understand market dynamics just fine - I got rich from it and I'm a shittier person for it. It is not possible to live in a market based economy and fulfill that desire. It is very easy for me to accept that. Demand for the asset simply has to dry up. It has not. People that want a PS5 can get one, at the available price. Scalpers are providing liquidity, you provided liquidity. Individual owners would be removing liquidity, likely causing greater premium in price to let one go and further hoops to jump through.

imwillofficial 5y ago

Most of the flow of money in the world passes through many layers of middle men.