[2zcon]

>the people who needed it more and were willing to pay more got it

And there the idealism breaks down. Willing to pay more - which you always are if it becomes a life-or-death situation - does not mean able to pay more; able to pay more does not mean deserves it more.

[antisthenes]

> able to pay more does not mean deserves it more.

Yes, but what's a good allocation metric for 'deserves' ? It's not an easily quantifiable metric.

[mrguyorama]

There is no law that prevents stores from having limits. Most places seem to manage not running out of inventory with significant sales or coupons just fine.

[jerf]

"Most places manage not to run out of inventory when they give out their own coupons or choose to run sales and have decades of experience in knowing what to expect from them" does not translate to "will know how to avoid running out during a black swan event like a pandemic".

Limits are legal, but sufficiently desperate people will do what it takes to get around them. A major component of the problem here is that neither you nor these stores can take their normal day-to-day experiences and apply them to black swan events like this. Your System 1 (bleh, what a terrible name that is....) heuristics are lying to you; you need to engage System 2 for this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

[whatshisface]

Hand sanitizer is not life or death even in a pandemic.