[falcolas]

One, citation needed.

Two, I don't care if they're starving children in Africa. They're leeches creating, extending, and profiteering off shortages.

And it's not just PS5/Xbox X - it's happening with OLED Switches, something which wasn't forecast to have shortages in the first place.

[drekipus]

> I don't care if they're starving children in Africa. They're leeches creating, extending, and profiteering off shortages.

Calm down dude, it's just videogames. None of this matters.

[falcolas]

> None of this matters.

Right, because scalping totally only ever happens with videogames, and never with generators, toilet paper, and water.

[KingMachiavelli]

There are legal protections on products like generators and water.

Scalpers on consumer goods are just providing a market correction; rather than having the goods go to the lucky few to find the product on store shelves the product goes to the highest bidder which in theory who deriving the most benefit. The alternative is the only way to get a GPU/Console would be to wait in line the longest which would make GPUs unavailable for people who need them for work, research, etc.

It's not like scalpers have a monopoly on the GPUs, they are competing with each other while incurring their own marginal costs so it is unlikely that the scalpers would be capable of raising the price above the 'real' market price.

The GPU market is the prefect example since all the evidence suggests that the GPU AIBs and distributors are inflating the prices far before scalpers buy the cards. You can tell this is the case because the only models widely available are the higher-tier SKUs of each card type.

You can argue that a market in which there are scalpers is ripe for corruption, collusion, etc. but those are separate issues.

[rdtwo]

Yep Zotac cards come pre scalped by the oem

[viggity]

It's how I paid for my Christmas gifts when I was in High School. Wait in lines for xboxes, furbies, whatever the hot toy was that year.

Think of the guys who spent tens of thousands of dollars on generators, rented a truck and drove down to New Orleans after katrina. They got locked up (and their generators impounded) because they were "price gouging". As if the tens of thousands of capital and the dangerous work of brining the generators to market wasn't worth the 5x markup. The generators weren't doing anyone any good sitting in Kansas.

Surely you're not greedy, right? You work for the good of everyone and you benefit in no way, right? It isn't the benevolence of the baker that puts bread on your table. It isn't the benevolence of the brewer that puts beer in your fridge. It isn't the benevolence of the butcher that puts the bacon in the oven. Prices are signals, and they work.

[nitwit005]

> It isn't the benevolence of the baker that puts bread on your table.

Farmers are often very proud of the fact they're feeding people, and I'm sure the same is true of bakers.

Given how often people seem to donate crops and food, I doubt you'd much of support for charging the desperate high prices for food, even from the people who stand to benefit.

[rdtwo]

The generator guy simply got robbed by the guys with guns in the state. He was doing a public service my moving essential equipment to a place it was needed and was charging a fee.

[falcolas]

Certainly, you can see the difference between a butcher and someone who buys out the butcher to sell the bacon for 5x their investment, just because they want that money in their pockets?

> They got locked up

Good. They were taking advantage of the poor and needy who are living without their homes and public utilities. They were taking advantage of a crisis to line their fucking pockets. If they really wanted those generators from Kansas to be useful, they could have moved them and charged their costs. There's no need to extravagantly line their pockets - to be greedy fuckers - to provide a useful service to a disaster area.

TL;DR: I think that the scalper's "my pocketbook first, no matter the cost to you" brand of morality to be morally bankrupt, and utterly deserving of society's scorn (and more).

[antisthenes]

You have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe stop for a second and think before spamming multiple hate posts in the thread.

Scalpers provide the service of price discovery. If there exist scalpers, it is because something was mispriced in the first place.

Most scalping happens on scarce luxury goods that are not necessary in any way shape or form for your survival, existence or even happiness.

No one owes you a 3090 GTX or a front-row concert ticket, but if you really want one, then you're going to pay a bit of extra money for the convenience of being able to get a very scarce good on short notice. Don't try to project your own morality on this transaction.