[squarefoot]

It's rather the opposite. They control the supply by creating artificial scarcity in order to profit from inflated prices. It's the absolute opposite of a service.

Example: 1000 Decks available at the distributor at €100 each (random numbers just to show the point) and 1000 people willing to buy one. Fine, each user orders one at that price and bingo: everyone is satisfied. Now put in there a scalper, that is, a middleman who buys almost all Decks at the price (or rather at a discount), then keeps them in storage for a while. Users start buying normally from official sources, then the stocks deplete and scalpers become the only supplier in town. Now everyone wants a Deck but they're unobtanium everywhere, so their scarcity inflates their perceived value and soon or later users are willing to pay twice their retail price to own the thing, rather than wait for the supply to return normal. The scalper slowly sells them one or very few at a time at inflated price and profit is guaranteed.

Now, if the product was built on Mars and the middleman added some value, for example using his cargo spaceship to bring them on Earth a thousand at a time, that would be fine, but the way they operate they're completely useless middlemen adding nothing of value and rather inflating prices for their own profit.

[JetSetWilly]

The situation where 1000 get from the distributor at "retail" price is essentially a lottery. It is great if you "won" a ticket and get the item at the retail price (which is less than the market demand would have it at), but not so great otherwise.

Scalpers increase efficiency because those who desire an item the most are willing to pay the most money for it. Therefore with a "scalper" operating it ensures that the items end up in the hands of those who value it the most. It also means there's no "lottery" - the price is increased until only those who value it and have the means can buy it. As we're talking about steam decks, and not food, there's not even any ultimate issue of hoarding or people being denied basic sustenance because they don't have enough money.

[parineum]

> It's rather the opposite. They control the supply by creating artificial scarcity

The scarcity is real. Scalpers sell the time and effort required to obtain scarce items.

>Now put in there a scalper, that is, a middleman who buys almost all Decks at the price (or rather at a discount), then keeps them in storage for a while.

This isn't happening. The value of the Steam Deck to a scalper goes down every time one is manufactured. They have to flip them as soon as possible to profit unless they somehow plan on buying all of the steam decks in perpetuity.

This isn't like concert tickets where there's a finite supply. Scalpers can't buy a significant amount of Decks because valve is just going to keep making them and selling them for less than the scalpers.

> the middleman added some value

Scalpers do add value. Think of it like paying someone to stand in line for you but not in advance.

[Shared404]

I'll admit, I have difficulty believing this is a legitimate take.

All scalpers do is decrease efficiency. It's not paying someone to stand in line, it's paying protection to someone to get something that would be available by default.

Or maybe a bit of both, at best.

[zo1]

The real problem here is that we as a society are broken and would absolutely slaughter Valve if they had variable pricing for this in-demand product. E.g. if Valve were to offer Steamdecks at twice the price for you to get to the head of the queue. Scalpers wouldn't exist in that situation unless even that "price point" wasn't satisfying everyone in the market. E.g. what about Bill Gates that wants one right now, shouldn't he be allowed to call up Valve and say "1 mill, I want to get my hands on this thing today!".

There is a gap in the market for whatever reason, and the scalpers are exploiting it. We may not like it, it may be a dirty practice, but it's filling a price-point that people are willing to pay. Not only that, but because Valve is unwilling to offer the product at a specific price/availability rate, they actively created the scalper market.

[Shared404]

> what about Bill Gates that wants one right now, shouldn't he be allowed to call up Valve and say "1 mill, I want to get my hands on this thing today!".

I'm of the opinion that this should be allowed - when it's a direct interaction between the purchaser and seller.

Any purchaser has the right to contact any seller and say I'll give you N*$ORIGINAL_PRICE to try to purchase something out of line. I'll agree that there's nothing wrong with reselling something you purchased, at whatever price you can - as long as it wasn't purchased specifically for that purpose, and _especially_ as long as automation wasn't involved.

[Forgeties79]

>there is a gap in the market for whatever reason

A gap that is further expanded by the existence of scalpers, which is a huge part of the problem. They’re making a problem worse and in some extreme cases even making a problem where there wasn’t one or it was at least minimal (happens with concerts all the time). Theres a reason so many big items/pre-orders/concerts etc. have invested in queue systems and limit purchase numbers. The ones that don’t are inviting scalpers.

[FeepingCreature]

I also agree with this.

Valve should offer a separate bundle of Steam Decks that are available sooner in exchange for a higher price. Since they have chosen (for PR reasons, presumably) to not do this, scalpers offer this service instead.

[sneak]

It is not only legitimate, it is accurate, and I also agree with it.

Scalpers do not create the situation where demand exceeds supply.

Edit: I get it, y'all don't like scalpers. I am not a scalper (though I have no problem with it), I am just responding to their disbelief by providing data.