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You're envisioning a world where people are using the product as intended, and simply because it's not available to richer people instead that is what you view

You're envisioning a world where people are using the product as intended, and simply because it's not available to richer people instead that is what you view as the problem? It seems to me the problem is scarcity (I think we agree on this much), and people trying to profit off that aren't anything more than parasites (we seem to disagree on this). Let's just agree to disagree.

vmception 5y ago
Not really my stance except the one thing we agree on. MSRP is wrong, the console is worth around $750, this would match the inflation adjusted price of home entrainment consoles for the last 40 years. In both of our views - maybe ironic to you - it would be more ethical to diminish the returns of scalpers by having the price correct in the primary market to begin with. The only reason it hasn’t happened is because Sony doesn’t want the vocal backlash especially when they drop the price to $200 just a few years from now. As long as the primary market chooses to misprice, all the symptoms - like all the startup partime retailers you say aren’t providing a service - are completely benign. Extracting value isn’t unethical, to me that is blaming Sony’s “make work” program (the mispricing) as unethical, taking us back to square one: charge the correct amount. I’m not here to agree, I’m completely fine with that disagreement and it doesn’t end the conservation at all, I’m here to elaborate.
- MegaButts 5y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion about the manufacturer raising prices in this instance. In the sense that there is a wild mismatch between supply and demand it makes sense to do so, and I'd rather the manufacturer reap the reward. I haven't thought enough about knock-on effects though. Yes, I'd prefer the manufacturer raising prices to having scalpers do it. I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I never said otherwise. My focus was entirely on the immorality of the scalper. In my opinion, they aren't providing value. In fact they are actually reducing value, since they have to hold at least some cards in order to sell them, actually restricting supply (and that's assuming they aren't doing it intentionally to create more artificial scarcity, which I'm sure some are). All they are doing is matching a limited supply with the highest bidder. Without scalpers just as many cards would get delivered to end users, now the only difference is those end users are richer. They are constricting a bottleneck and profiting from it at the expense of consumers and arguably even GPU manufacturers. > Extracting value isn’t unethical We just fundamentally disagree here. Parasitism is unethical to me. I understand it's inevitable, but that doesn't make it okay.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Rationing is prone to corruption, this is how scalpers usually get their goods but this also means they are just symptoms.

vmception 5y ago

Not really my stance except the one thing we agree on. MSRP is wrong, the console is worth around $750, this would match the inflation adjusted price of home entrainment consoles for the last 40 years. In both of our views - maybe ironic to you - it would be more ethical to diminish the returns of scalpers by having the price correct in the primary market to begin with. The only reason it hasn’t happened is because Sony doesn’t want the vocal backlash especially when they drop the price to $200 just a few years from now. As long as the primary market chooses to misprice, all the symptoms - like all the startup partime retailers you say aren’t providing a service - are completely benign. Extracting value isn’t unethical, to me that is blaming Sony’s “make work” program (the mispricing) as unethical, taking us back to square one: charge the correct amount. I’m not here to agree, I’m completely fine with that disagreement and it doesn’t end the conservation at all, I’m here to elaborate.

MegaButts 5y ago
I don't have a strong opinion about the manufacturer raising prices in this instance. In the sense that there is a wild mismatch between supply and demand it makes sense to do so, and I'd rather the manufacturer reap the reward. I haven't thought enough about knock-on effects though. Yes, I'd prefer the manufacturer raising prices to having scalpers do it. I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I never said otherwise. My focus was entirely on the immorality of the scalper. In my opinion, they aren't providing value. In fact they are actually reducing value, since they have to hold at least some cards in order to sell them, actually restricting supply (and that's assuming they aren't doing it intentionally to create more artificial scarcity, which I'm sure some are). All they are doing is matching a limited supply with the highest bidder. Without scalpers just as many cards would get delivered to end users, now the only difference is those end users are richer. They are constricting a bottleneck and profiting from it at the expense of consumers and arguably even GPU manufacturers. > Extracting value isn’t unethical We just fundamentally disagree here. Parasitism is unethical to me. I understand it's inevitable, but that doesn't make it okay.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Rationing is prone to corruption, this is how scalpers usually get their goods but this also means they are just symptoms.