3 ms·

Scalping is a good thing, because it gets consoles in the hands of those who want them the most, as evidenced by willingness to pay.

geon 4mo ago
Absolutely no one needs a steam machine.
jcurtis 4mo ago
This would only make sense if everyone has equal ability to pay.
- welshwelsh 4mo ago
  You're right. It's not just aboutwillingness to pay, but also how much someone deserves to own a Steam Machine, which we determine by their ability to pay. It's not a perfect system, but money is how we as a society determine how to allocate scarce resources. People labor under the promise that having additional money will give them an advantage in this type of situation.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Escapado 4mo ago
    Sounds like you love unregulated free capitalism but correct me if I am wrong. If that’s the case I wonder if you would see things differently if said system strongly disadvantaged you and your loved ones in other areas (health care, housing, education). I think if we derive “deserving” solely by “ability to pay” we loose our humanity.
  - Dylan16807 4mo ago
    People labor so they can buy stuff in general, mostly at normal pricing. Nobody labors for the edge case of paying off a scalper to get something, and that situation's mostly going to cause bitterness that they had to work extra because the scalper inflated the price.
AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
If that's what you actually wanted then Valve could just sell them at auction and at least have the money going to the company actually making the thing instead of a useless middleman. Moreover, that's what happens anyway. If you get one of the slots and you value the difference between what you paid and the "real" (resale) price more than you value having the console, you can still sell it. But then more of the money goes to ordinary customers rather than rewarding people who snipe with bots etc. I would also point out that you can build a PC to run SteamOS with approximately the same specs for approximately the same price, so it's not clear who is going to be paying a significant premium over the sticker price instead of doing that if they don't get a slot.
- welshwelsh 4mo ago
  That is precisely what Valve should do. It is unfortunate that we need scalpers, simply because companies are bizarrely unwilling to adjust their pricing based on market conditions.
  - bjt 4mo ago
    It's not that bizarre. Not everyone is trying to optimize for maximum profit. Some creators or companies want to build a community by increasing the consumer surplus received by their buyers. They are willing to trade profit for that. Scalpers slip into the middle, take the surplus for themselves, and prevent the community building or other social goods that the seller is trying to create.
  - mywittyname 4mo ago
    > bizarrely unwilling to adjust their pricing based on market conditions. When they do this, customers have a conniption. This works fine for luxury goods, because the whole point is that they are expensive, thus exclusive (see: Porsche, Rolex). But for regular goods, this ends up being penny wise, pound foolish. Yeah, there's a short-term bump in revenues and profits, but it gives competition a massive attack surface, as they can pull away the most loyal customers who are angry over price gouging, and those customers are probably lost forever.
plagiarist 4mo ago
A sound economic theory after we grant the assumption that all consumers have equal amounts of money.
- anthonyrstevens 4mo ago
  On a scale of zero to Elon Musk, consumers all have approximately equal amounts of money /s
ranger207 4mo ago
If you can't see the human effects scalping has on the market, then, well, you might be a microeconomist
korse 4mo ago
You are right. Basic economic theory says nothing about distribution of value, only about creation of the most value. I don't know why your comment is grey. But... perhaps these guys are playing a longer game? Reputation has value as well and from other comments this move seems to boost reputation significantly.
Levitz 4mo ago
Scalping adds no value to the product. Scalping also actively damages the pricing, which is part of the product. Valve wants to sell this product at a specific price, which is targeted to an audience. By scalping and ultimately changing the price, you are hurting both the consumer, who now pays more, and the company, who doesn't see a cent of this increase and is now failing its target. Scalping also damages the demand for the product, since it creates a submarket that is volatile and unpredictable. Scalping is a bad thing because by basically any measure, a market with scalping is worse for everybody involved than one with scalping. Except for scalpers, who make money off it by making it worse for everybody else. Which is why scalpers are bad people.
- Ferret7446 4mo ago
  Scalping provides the service of exchanging money for time, means, and/or luck. People who have no time to camp, no botting tools or skills, etc can exchange their money instead. Scalping is a natural "black" market which always pops up to satisfy market demand whenever artificial restrictions are placed on the market. Even in this case, there will be scalpers providing for people with more money than luck, who want a day one steam machine.
  - gs17 4mo ago
    > People who have no time to camp, no botting tools or skills, etc can exchange their money instead. But they only need to do that because of the scalpers! The scalpers aren't adding value, they're adding friction and expecting people to pay extra for it!
    - orangecat 4mo ago
      But they only need to do that because of the scalpers! Scalpers can only profitably exist when demand at the list price exceeds supply. If you could magically ban scalping, then some number of willing customers wouldn't be able to buy at any price even after jumping through all the hoops.
      - 4mo ago
furyofantares 4mo ago
Not hard to imagine minimum wage workers wanting some gaming console quite badly and being outbid by tech workers who are vaguely interested. As an adult I have rarely wanted things as badly as I did when I was a kid. But I can sure outbid them. I think you might actually be maximally wrong, as those with means have plenty of entertainment options compared to those without.
- anthonyrstevens 4mo ago
  Your comment made me realize that it's also not hard to imagine we could be a few short years away from a benevolent AI tasked with setting the market and selectively selling to individuals who, as a group, embody some ideal distribution for the company.
krabizzwainch 4mo ago
Something that only benefits people with the most disposable income is a bad thing. I will preach from any platform that I have that scalpers are shit people.
- nrb 4mo ago
  Save some shade for people who are buying from the scalpers too.
numpad0 4mo ago
Some people argues that, but that's not how scalping works because it first chokes the supply to create a fake demand. The scalper listing prices don't represent the true price on supply-demand curve had there not been artificial meddling through published MSRP, but merely how forcefully they managed to choke the life of the product. They buy up ALL the stocks. Then puts them on auction sites after supply had hit as close to zero as possible. That's not how economics work by the books.
mattjoyce 4mo ago
Scalper:by increasing prices we add the value of enabling people to express their desire more faithfully.
Snacklive 4mo ago
That's just bad ragebait

geon 4mo ago

Absolutely no one needs a steam machine.

jcurtis 4mo ago

This would only make sense if everyone has equal ability to pay.

welshwelsh 4mo ago
You're right. It's not just aboutwillingness to pay, but also how much someone deserves to own a Steam Machine, which we determine by their ability to pay. It's not a perfect system, but money is how we as a society determine how to allocate scarce resources. People labor under the promise that having additional money will give them an advantage in this type of situation.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- Escapado 4mo ago
  Sounds like you love unregulated free capitalism but correct me if I am wrong. If that’s the case I wonder if you would see things differently if said system strongly disadvantaged you and your loved ones in other areas (health care, housing, education). I think if we derive “deserving” solely by “ability to pay” we loose our humanity.
- Dylan16807 4mo ago
  People labor so they can buy stuff in general, mostly at normal pricing. Nobody labors for the edge case of paying off a scalper to get something, and that situation's mostly going to cause bitterness that they had to work extra because the scalper inflated the price.

AnthonyMouse 4mo ago

If that's what you actually wanted then Valve could just sell them at auction and at least have the money going to the company actually making the thing instead of a useless middleman. Moreover, that's what happens anyway. If you get one of the slots and you value the difference between what you paid and the "real" (resale) price more than you value having the console, you can still sell it. But then more of the money goes to ordinary customers rather than rewarding people who snipe with bots etc. I would also point out that you can build a PC to run SteamOS with approximately the same specs for approximately the same price, so it's not clear who is going to be paying a significant premium over the sticker price instead of doing that if they don't get a slot.

welshwelsh 4mo ago
That is precisely what Valve should do. It is unfortunate that we need scalpers, simply because companies are bizarrely unwilling to adjust their pricing based on market conditions.
- bjt 4mo ago
  It's not that bizarre. Not everyone is trying to optimize for maximum profit. Some creators or companies want to build a community by increasing the consumer surplus received by their buyers. They are willing to trade profit for that. Scalpers slip into the middle, take the surplus for themselves, and prevent the community building or other social goods that the seller is trying to create.
- mywittyname 4mo ago
  > bizarrely unwilling to adjust their pricing based on market conditions. When they do this, customers have a conniption. This works fine for luxury goods, because the whole point is that they are expensive, thus exclusive (see: Porsche, Rolex). But for regular goods, this ends up being penny wise, pound foolish. Yeah, there's a short-term bump in revenues and profits, but it gives competition a massive attack surface, as they can pull away the most loyal customers who are angry over price gouging, and those customers are probably lost forever.

plagiarist 4mo ago

A sound economic theory after we grant the assumption that all consumers have equal amounts of money.

anthonyrstevens 4mo ago
On a scale of zero to Elon Musk, consumers all have approximately equal amounts of money /s

ranger207 4mo ago

If you can't see the human effects scalping has on the market, then, well, you might be a microeconomist

korse 4mo ago

You are right. Basic economic theory says nothing about distribution of value, only about creation of the most value. I don't know why your comment is grey. But... perhaps these guys are playing a longer game? Reputation has value as well and from other comments this move seems to boost reputation significantly.

Levitz 4mo ago

Scalping adds no value to the product. Scalping also actively damages the pricing, which is part of the product. Valve wants to sell this product at a specific price, which is targeted to an audience. By scalping and ultimately changing the price, you are hurting both the consumer, who now pays more, and the company, who doesn't see a cent of this increase and is now failing its target. Scalping also damages the demand for the product, since it creates a submarket that is volatile and unpredictable. Scalping is a bad thing because by basically any measure, a market with scalping is worse for everybody involved than one with scalping. Except for scalpers, who make money off it by making it worse for everybody else. Which is why scalpers are bad people.

Ferret7446 4mo ago
Scalping provides the service of exchanging money for time, means, and/or luck. People who have no time to camp, no botting tools or skills, etc can exchange their money instead. Scalping is a natural "black" market which always pops up to satisfy market demand whenever artificial restrictions are placed on the market. Even in this case, there will be scalpers providing for people with more money than luck, who want a day one steam machine.
- gs17 4mo ago
  > People who have no time to camp, no botting tools or skills, etc can exchange their money instead. But they only need to do that because of the scalpers! The scalpers aren't adding value, they're adding friction and expecting people to pay extra for it!
  - orangecat 4mo ago
    But they only need to do that because of the scalpers! Scalpers can only profitably exist when demand at the list price exceeds supply. If you could magically ban scalping, then some number of willing customers wouldn't be able to buy at any price even after jumping through all the hoops.
    - 4mo ago

furyofantares 4mo ago

Not hard to imagine minimum wage workers wanting some gaming console quite badly and being outbid by tech workers who are vaguely interested. As an adult I have rarely wanted things as badly as I did when I was a kid. But I can sure outbid them. I think you might actually be maximally wrong, as those with means have plenty of entertainment options compared to those without.

anthonyrstevens 4mo ago
Your comment made me realize that it's also not hard to imagine we could be a few short years away from a benevolent AI tasked with setting the market and selectively selling to individuals who, as a group, embody some ideal distribution for the company.

krabizzwainch 4mo ago

Something that only benefits people with the most disposable income is a bad thing. I will preach from any platform that I have that scalpers are shit people.

nrb 4mo ago
Save some shade for people who are buying from the scalpers too.

numpad0 4mo ago

Some people argues that, but that's not how scalping works because it first chokes the supply to create a fake demand. The scalper listing prices don't represent the true price on supply-demand curve had there not been artificial meddling through published MSRP, but merely how forcefully they managed to choke the life of the product. They buy up ALL the stocks. Then puts them on auction sites after supply had hit as close to zero as possible. That's not how economics work by the books.

mattjoyce 4mo ago

Scalper:by increasing prices we add the value of enabling people to express their desire more faithfully.

Snacklive 4mo ago

That's just bad ragebait