[bluetidepro]

I don't fully understand this narrative that is going around about scalpers and the controller. So many people online are claiming it was only scalpers who were able to purchase one. I am also not a scalper (as someone else said), and was able to purchase one. We don't know how many they actually had in stock in total but let's say it's around 30K, from what I have searched on eBay and other reselling sites it would only seem like less than 1% of the stock is being sold by resellers/scalpers. I think it was just a high demand product. I know scalpers are a problem in much of the entertainment industry right now, but it's also becoming a scape goat for anything you just weren't able to buy yourself. It's quite annoying and getting old fast.

[iknowstuff]

It’s hard to participate in any gaming communities because you quickly realize they’re all kids who have no idea about markets but they all talk like foremost experts on every subject

[cortesoft]

This is not just gaming communities and it is not just kids. The number of adults who don't understand basic supply and demand is astonishing.

Every discussion about Ticketmaster and/or scalpers is full of people who think if it wasn't for scalpers and ticketmaster, we could all go to every concert we want to for a reasonable price.

It is the same thing with the tech community and the price of hard drives, RAM, and GPUs right now. I have seen so many comments by people saying they "aren't going to support the price gouging" and seem to think manufacturers are just taking advantage of the hype to increase their prices.

[legulere]

The societal advantage of raising prices with demand is that it will lead to more supply generally, but in some cases supply is just simply limited and cannot be expanded enough sensibly. This leads just to people earning money without any additional economic benefit and often the poor suffering because of it (like with oil currently).

Of course DRAM manufacturers are taking advantage of the current situation, they're companies and making money is what companies are for. The problem is that DRAM manufacturing works in boom-bust cycles, building a new factory is capital intensive and slow, so additional supply will come too few and too late to press prices down to a sensible rate above manufacturing costs.

[echoangle]

The funniest to me was people being confused why cutting of the strait of Hormuz would increase gas prices in the US when the US produces enough to supply its own demand.

But since it’s a global market the missing supply raises prices everywhere…

[goolz]

Does Ticketmaster not amplify prices and use perceived scarcity to drive up prices? They can due that because Live Nation is a monopoly in all but name.

[cortesoft]

If the tickets still sell out at the higher prices, than it is real scarcity, not artificial scarcity.

Each show has a set number of seats... it isn't an artificial monopoly, it is an intrinsic monopoly. People don't want to just go to A concert, they want to go to a SPECIFIC concert, and a concert venue only holds a set amount of people.

[pelotron]

Then they build new stadiums that are physically larger but have fewer seats.

[izacus]

The only thing that's worse is seeing people like you defend scams, exploitation and worsening of consumer experience with trite high school "economics" explanations - and then insulting abused parties because of it.

[cortesoft]

There are a lot of scams in the world, but high prices for desirable things with capped supply aren't caused by a scam.

[tyg13]

I don't think you can really escape this anywhere online. Hacker News has the same problem, really.

[kbelder]

Future HN posters in training.

[flumpcakes]

I managed to buy one, I also have no intention to sell it anytime soon. I do wish there were better protections against scalpers though, they are a blight.

[BadBadJellyBean]

It's also very important to understand that Valve has 100% control of the marketplace. They don't have to hope that Best Buy or Walmart or whatever secure their system against scalpers. They can enforce account history requirements and rate limiting or what ever they please.

I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't do that.

[3form]

From what I've read the limitation was having a "premium" account (spent at least $5 on Steam) and maximum controllers was 3 per account.

EDIT: I see others here mention 2 max. Haven't heard that before, but that makes more sense to me.