5 ms·

Wow. This is both genius, and despicable. It's amazing what kind of profit they drive, yet it seems like they're really taking advantage of people with gambli

by tialys 18y ago

Wow. This is both genius, and despicable. It's amazing what kind of profit they drive, yet it seems like they're really taking advantage of people with gambling addictions, or poor money management skills.

gnaritas 18y ago
Isn't that what most businesses do?
- steveplace 18y ago
  Generalisation. Making money and creating value are independent of one another. Good businesses do both.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Actually, good businesses only do the former. Great/exceptional businesses do both.
    - steveplace 18y ago
      Sorry for my improper adjective use, apparently.
      - stcredzero 18y ago
        I think it's more that you two have different opinions on percentages.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  That shouldn't be downmodded. The guy is technically correct.
- mynameishere 18y ago
  An annoying attitude. I spend 2 dollars on a box of crackers. Here's the rough process: 1. Farmer takes out a loan at Wells Fargo. 2. Loan clears, Farmer buys seed, etc. 3. Farmer grows 2000 acres of wheat. 4. Summer passes, farmer harvests wheat, and it travels 1000 miles to be processed. 5. Nabisco (Altria) buys wheat for a pre-agreed price (determined months ago by the Chicago futures exchange--a bunch of speculators who took risk on themselves so Nabisco and Joe Farmer could get to business.) 6. Nabisco puts the wheat (plus 10 other commodities) into its industrial mixers, ovens, packaging machines, fleet, etc, until it winds up at Walmart. 7. Walmart (which did 1001 separate things in order to make the deal go down) puts a $2.00 electronic price on the crackers. 8. I show up, put some plastic through a device, some digital numbers go through 2 thousand miles of wire to 5 different financial institutions, and then I get a box of crackers. Game over. I've participated in 500 billion dollars worth of business without even realizing it, getting a day's worth of calories for a tiny percentage of my daily income. That's "evil" somehow?
  - gnaritas 18y ago
    Where exactly did I say anything about evil? The goal of business is to fleece its customers of their money. Some do it in nicer ways than others but they all do it, poor money management skills on the customers part is always good for business. Our entire consumer economy is based on that fact; we spend all of our excess money rather than saving it like we should.
    - eru 18y ago
      Why should you save all your money?
      - gnaritas 18y ago
        I didn't directly say you should save all of your money, I said you shouldn't spend all of your excess money. You should be saving for an emergency fund, retirement, kids college, things you want to buy in cash rather than putting everything on credit. American are horrible at this, they live right at the edge of, or above their means rather than below it as they should.
stcredzero 18y ago
Fred Allen's dictum: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public." http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue147/ed.html http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue147/ed.html
run4yourlives 18y ago
So does the government and many charities, the entire city of Las Vegas and churches on Saturday nights across the country, every major sports league (not often directly), etc etc etc. Pretty much every business takes advantage of the fact that the consumer is lacking something, whether that's knowledge, time, money or material. It's the way capitalism works.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Good point; it's like a stupid people tax. Unfortunately it's tricky for even smart people to avoid some of them.
  - eru 18y ago
    Stupidity is not binary.
    - fallentimes 18y ago
      No one said it was.
      - eru 18y ago
        Yes. I just wanted to second that you can be stupid to a certain a degree in one area and to another degree in another one.
- fauigerzigerk 18y ago
  No. Capitalism is a system of decentralised decision making on resource allocation, ultimately leading to increased productivity and innovation. I have no idea how a ponzi scheme that makes "simple" people overpay fits this description as it leads to incredibly bad resource allocation. You could argue that such failures are part of capitalism and I would agree. But they are still failures. Capitalism depends on such failures being fewer than those cases where funds go where value is being created.
  - 18y ago
andreyf 18y ago
It's amazing what kind of profit they drive... I wonder how one could estimate their income...
- vaksel 18y ago
  the wiki page lists revenue: 20 million Euro in 2008 ($28.3 million USD)
mattmaroon 18y ago
I don't see why it's despicable. The format of the auction seems to be clearly available to all participants. It's all consenting adults, who have all of the information needed to make their own informed decision as to whether or not to participate. If people want to gamble, why not let them? How is this any different than operating a casino? It's not wrong to provide a service that many people deem enjoyable just because a small portion of them can't exert the self-control to use it responsibly.
- axod 18y ago
  "How is this any different than operating a casino?" Operating a casino requires a license for a start afaik, and there are checks to ensure things are fair. How do we know the winning bidders actually exist? I agree people should be able to make their own minds up in the main, but they should be doing that safe in the knowledge that they are being treated fairly.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    Isn't that endemic to any auction site? eBay knows your max bid and could easily have bots forcing up the incremental bids to earn themselves more fees. Perhaps all auction sites should be audited, but I don't see how this one is any worse than the rest. And sadly the licensing requirements for online casinos are a joke. Read up on the Kahnawakee Gaming Commission some time, you'll get a kick out of it. Until we legalize and regulate them, they'll never improve.
    - joeyo 18y ago
      This is actually a really good point. Why does anyone entrust eBay with knowledge of their maximum bid? A hypothetical shill-bot 9000 could easily bid up auctions without ever having to worry about accidentally having to own the item. It seems like it would be far better to have your own bidbot handle things for you...
      - mattmaroon 18y ago

by tialys 18y ago

gnaritas 18y ago

Isn't that what most businesses do?

steveplace 18y ago
Generalisation. Making money and creating value are independent of one another. Good businesses do both.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Actually, good businesses only do the former. Great/exceptional businesses do both.
  - steveplace 18y ago
    Sorry for my improper adjective use, apparently.
    - stcredzero 18y ago
      I think it's more that you two have different opinions on percentages.
run4yourlives 18y ago
That shouldn't be downmodded. The guy is technically correct.
mynameishere 18y ago
An annoying attitude. I spend 2 dollars on a box of crackers. Here's the rough process: 1. Farmer takes out a loan at Wells Fargo. 2. Loan clears, Farmer buys seed, etc. 3. Farmer grows 2000 acres of wheat. 4. Summer passes, farmer harvests wheat, and it travels 1000 miles to be processed. 5. Nabisco (Altria) buys wheat for a pre-agreed price (determined months ago by the Chicago futures exchange--a bunch of speculators who took risk on themselves so Nabisco and Joe Farmer could get to business.) 6. Nabisco puts the wheat (plus 10 other commodities) into its industrial mixers, ovens, packaging machines, fleet, etc, until it winds up at Walmart. 7. Walmart (which did 1001 separate things in order to make the deal go down) puts a $2.00 electronic price on the crackers. 8. I show up, put some plastic through a device, some digital numbers go through 2 thousand miles of wire to 5 different financial institutions, and then I get a box of crackers. Game over. I've participated in 500 billion dollars worth of business without even realizing it, getting a day's worth of calories for a tiny percentage of my daily income. That's "evil" somehow?
- gnaritas 18y ago
  Where exactly did I say anything about evil? The goal of business is to fleece its customers of their money. Some do it in nicer ways than others but they all do it, poor money management skills on the customers part is always good for business. Our entire consumer economy is based on that fact; we spend all of our excess money rather than saving it like we should.
  - eru 18y ago
    Why should you save all your money?
    - gnaritas 18y ago
      I didn't directly say you should save all of your money, I said you shouldn't spend all of your excess money. You should be saving for an emergency fund, retirement, kids college, things you want to buy in cash rather than putting everything on credit. American are horrible at this, they live right at the edge of, or above their means rather than below it as they should.

stcredzero 18y ago

Fred Allen's dictum: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American Public." http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue147/ed.html http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue147/ed.html

run4yourlives 18y ago

So does the government and many charities, the entire city of Las Vegas and churches on Saturday nights across the country, every major sports league (not often directly), etc etc etc. Pretty much every business takes advantage of the fact that the consumer is lacking something, whether that's knowledge, time, money or material. It's the way capitalism works.

fallentimes 18y ago
Good point; it's like a stupid people tax. Unfortunately it's tricky for even smart people to avoid some of them.
- eru 18y ago
  Stupidity is not binary.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    No one said it was.
    - eru 18y ago
      Yes. I just wanted to second that you can be stupid to a certain a degree in one area and to another degree in another one.
fauigerzigerk 18y ago
No. Capitalism is a system of decentralised decision making on resource allocation, ultimately leading to increased productivity and innovation. I have no idea how a ponzi scheme that makes "simple" people overpay fits this description as it leads to incredibly bad resource allocation. You could argue that such failures are part of capitalism and I would agree. But they are still failures. Capitalism depends on such failures being fewer than those cases where funds go where value is being created.
- 18y ago

andreyf 18y ago

It's amazing what kind of profit they drive... I wonder how one could estimate their income...

vaksel 18y ago
the wiki page lists revenue: 20 million Euro in 2008 ($28.3 million USD)

mattmaroon 18y ago

I don't see why it's despicable. The format of the auction seems to be clearly available to all participants. It's all consenting adults, who have all of the information needed to make their own informed decision as to whether or not to participate. If people want to gamble, why not let them? How is this any different than operating a casino? It's not wrong to provide a service that many people deem enjoyable just because a small portion of them can't exert the self-control to use it responsibly.

axod 18y ago
"How is this any different than operating a casino?" Operating a casino requires a license for a start afaik, and there are checks to ensure things are fair. How do we know the winning bidders actually exist? I agree people should be able to make their own minds up in the main, but they should be doing that safe in the knowledge that they are being treated fairly.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  Isn't that endemic to any auction site? eBay knows your max bid and could easily have bots forcing up the incremental bids to earn themselves more fees. Perhaps all auction sites should be audited, but I don't see how this one is any worse than the rest. And sadly the licensing requirements for online casinos are a joke. Read up on the Kahnawakee Gaming Commission some time, you'll get a kick out of it. Until we legalize and regulate them, they'll never improve.
  - joeyo 18y ago
    This is actually a really good point. Why does anyone entrust eBay with knowledge of their maximum bid? A hypothetical shill-bot 9000 could easily bid up auctions without ever having to worry about accidentally having to own the item. It seems like it would be far better to have your own bidbot handle things for you...
    - mattmaroon 18y ago