5 ms·
i don't disagree, adafruit is probably acting in their best interest, however they perceive what that interest might be, it's not always just "more profit", mor
by internet_user 5y ago
i don't disagree, adafruit is probably acting in their best interest, however they perceive what that interest might be, it's not always just "more profit", more often than not, it's a matter of survival that is at stake.
My issue was with the comment somehow suggesting the entire system (Big Bad Market) is somehow less wise than an individual actor.
Yet, the entire system contains much more information, that the individual actor does not, and can never have access to, e.g. value judgements of other market participants he will never meet.
Markets, at the core, are just auctions. It's one way to resolve the question who gets the scarce resource first. At other times, it's medical triage, a system very different from "free markets". It can also be first-come, first-serve, which is what currently being attempted by Adafruit now.
Many such options. Why is "free market" judged to be inappropriate here?
From my experience in markets with severe shortages, first-come/first-serve rationing approach never failed to produce a poor supply, and free floating markets were always oversupplied (to a varying extent, but in general there was a trend).
- kube-system 5y agoSometimes people express a sentiment that the supply/demand curves are more than just tools to evaluate a situation, but instead, are a sacred ideal to always strive towards. But economists also recognize that markets are awful at pricing in externalities, and even worse at respecting morals and ethics.
- kelnos 5y agoThis is the core of it for me. The base Raspberry Pi model is supposed to cost $35, because the Raspberry Pi Foundation has decided that offering a low cost SBC is important for the world. Using a bot to buy up all inventory so you can resell it at $50 or $100 or whatever is unethical. You have provided no added value; you are just a parasite scalping others for your own enrichment. If this is what a "free market" is, as many people here seem to think, then free markets are objectively bad for the commons.
- cinntaile 5y agoIt's not a free market since the manufacturer determines what the stores should sell it for and the result is a middleman extracting the value between set price and market price.
- bluGill 5y agoThat is still a free market. The free market is across all competitors, so pi competes with pine64 in the market. Pi does not compete with themselves.
- cinntaile 5y agoIf you have 5 RPi resellers and they all have to have the same price because the manufacturer tells them so is not a free market. There is no interplay between supply and demand.
- kube-system 5y agoArguing over what constitutes a "free market" is silly. It's a gradient, not a boolean. Every real-world financial market that exists has non-market forces that apply to it, even if they're just laws against fraud.
- cinntaile 5y agoI don't think it's silly, but it's definitely not easy and it's not really the important part here so I don't mind ending that discussion subject.
- bluGill 5y agoI stand by my statement: you need to read it a few more times until you understand it. The market is credit card sized arm based computers, not raspberry pi. If you narrow things too much then you can make anything not a market. Wal-Mart has a monopoly on apples if you narrow the market to inside their store.
- MereInterest 5y agoExactly! Treating the good intentions of a seller as an opportunity for arbitrage is unethical.