Ghot struck a home run.

This is an odd thread.
You seem to understand and agree with some central arguments that show why price gouging laws and scalping laws are terrible.

I really don't see how your need to play Cyberpunk with a fancy new GPU is some special case that merits government intervention. This is Babylon Bee caliber stuff.

Why do you deserve the GPU more than someone who is willing to pay more for it and found a consenting seller? And how does that justify government force?

Its not some futuristic computer program monopoly. There actually is very high demand for these items for a variety of reasons.
People are willing to pay the higher prices in many cases.
If producers or big retailers are selling their product far below secondary market value thats their own decision and potential loss.

But lets say some battlestar galactica toaster and Mr Burns from the Simpsons did buy all of them.
One of the main concepts when reading about and analyzing the issue is to realize there are alternatives.
Even if one guy has all the cheerios or ballpark hotdogs in town its not exactly apocalyptic. There are still other brands or other similar products.

You don't need a brand new gtx 360 no scope goldplated std with universal healthcare to play the diablo 2 remaster. There are a variety of suitable GPUs that can be had for less.


about 5 seconds of searching turned some up for less.
walmart is now selling them at 1 grand a pop. They aren't some computer nerd scalper.
The market is adjusting.

The suggested retail price isn't a guarantee the product is going to be worth that much.

The underlying phenomenon of this thread here is actually rather common.
Many people think their own business or industry or personal interest is a special case that merits government intervention. They might realize price controls and other nonsense is bad but hey id like some special subsidies please.
Its for the good of society they'll say.

Its not.

My favored solution to the GPU and computing issue is to do what we need to increase the speed at which manufacturing can keep up.

Some industries we can afford to have bottlenecks without much impact on the rest of the world. Like if there's a fungus that wipes out bananas it's tragic, but we can all just start eating apples. Computing has quickly become the central thing that virtually all new technologies require, so hold ups in production of silicon for processors is truly a global issue that could threaten so much more. The bottleneck in production is the real issue, not scalping.

Yes, demand is very high and I can see why the price has to arise naturally. But my issue is more with the organized front running of a scarce product, not some random guy that's buying a few. There are businesses that basically have automated unfair ways to always be at the front of the line.

That's what I'm pointing out. It's different from monopolizing hotdogs at the ballpark because as soon as you leave the game you can go to the store and buy as many hotdogs as you want. Here the front runners know there is no other place to buy this product and basically use algos to buy bulk only to immediately resale at 100% markup.

Do I think the government should step in? Probably not. I do think that this type of predatory behavior is damaging to market dynamics.

In economic terms, it may not be materially impacting suppliers but it's significantly taxing the consumer surplus.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 8 2021 02:53pm

I mean people could get a real job instead of holding hundreds of pounds worth of shit in thier apartments. How can you be greedy and lazy at the same time is my question, I guess humans really are capable of anything.

It is not damaging to market dynamics, it is literally a textbook example of market dynamics.

Monopolizing a supply of a certain commodity from primary suppliers only to immediately flip it for massive and immediate profits is not natural.

Give me some examples if this is textbook behavior I’m curious to hear.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 8 2021 06:22pm

Except it's not one company or group doing it. This is not monopolistic behavior, there's multiple groups and individuals doing the scalping.

You have this weird impression that it's a giant company doing all this. It's not. There's discord servers chalk full of people with web-scraping bots trading information on scalping multiple products, not just graphics cards.

That’s part of it and then there’s middle man that are selling from certified vendors on Amazon, on various websites. Are the Amazon sellers that probably bought huge supplies also just some kids on discord servers or?

So examples?

Cams right.