$199 Totaltech Paywall Helps Scalper Snag 20+ GPUs From Best Buy

Segfault said:
Scalpers are the byproduct of destructive economic policies. Every time the free market is restricted black market arises. Don't blame the rainwater when your roof is leaking.
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I am also confused by this statement. How is the free market restricted here? If anything, this is Best Buy pushing the envelope on the free market, which is being taken advantage of by a profiteer of the free market.
 
Segfault said:
Scalpers are the byproduct of destructive economic policies. Every time the free market is restricted black market arises. Don't blame the rainwater when your roof is leaking.
Click to expand...
Can you specify which “destructive economic policies” here you are thinking has caused these so called restrictions? That have caused scalpers to rise up into the electronics markets?
 
Segfault said:
Scalpers are the byproduct of destructive economic policies. Every time the free market is restricted black market arises. Don't blame the rainwater when your roof is leaking.
Click to expand...

"Destructive economic policies".....other than you learned a new phrase today what are you referring to?

This is just someone utilizing the free market. He saw best buy as a supplier of something he could resell. People do this on ebay all the time. I've seen a friend make side money just buying shower curtains at target and ebaying for twice as much.
 
legcramp said:
Nothing stopping entitled gamers from buying the subscription and getting their GPU like every other person wanting the same products.
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I cringe every time I read "entitled gamers". It's usually followed by gamers finding a work around for bullshit and the same people call them entitled for not paying.
Segfault said:
Scalpers are the byproduct of destructive economic policies. Every time the free market is restricted black market arises. Don't blame the rainwater when your roof is leaking.
Click to expand...
Scalpers are the byproduct of limited supply and the ability to buy something from your home using a script to mass purchase. If you wanna buy a GPU you have AMD and Nvidia and that's it. Intel will soon be a third but three competitors is not healthy competition. AMD and Nvidia have been caught multiple times in the past price fixing, so who's to say they still aren't? Even Xbox and Playstation are techno feudalism because you can't just buy a game and play it on either console. You must buy a game for that specific platform or it won't work. If you add Nintendo then you have three competitors for the console market, though I would argue there's only really two.

Limited choice plus ability to purchase things without going to the store is how scalpers are thriving. Bestbuy is the free market trying to fix this by profiting from this situation and not actually fixing it. You don't see many companies putting down their money to make chip fabs in America, but instead it's the American government who's paying. Ohio giving Intel $20 Billion to create a chip factory will do a lot more to fix this problem than whatever damage Bestbuy is doing.
 
chameleoneel said:
And why would you argue that? Nintendo has been killing with hardware and software sales. Hardware sales were about half of their earnings for fiscal year 2021:

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/ninte...rdware-was-2x-more-than-the-ps4-ps5-and-xbox/
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I would argue one maybe. Just three separate ones, if you get a video card amd, nvidia or Intel then what you do with them is more or less identical. You get a ps5 then you cant exactly borrow games from your friend with the xbox, or buy a copy of Smash Bros
 
DukenukemX said:
I cringe every time I read "entitled gamers". It's usually followed by gamers finding a work around for bullshit and the same people call them entitled for not paying.

Scalpers are the byproduct of limited supply and the ability to buy something from your home using a script to mass purchase. If you wanna buy a GPU you have AMD and Nvidia and that's it. Intel will soon be a third but three competitors is not healthy competition. AMD and Nvidia have been caught multiple times in the past price fixing, so who's to say they still aren't? Even Xbox and Playstation are techno feudalism because you can't just buy a game and play it on either console. You must buy a game for that specific platform or it won't work. If you add Nintendo then you have three competitors for the console market, though I would argue there's only really two.

Limited choice plus ability to purchase things without going to the store is how scalpers are thriving. Bestbuy is the free market trying to fix this by profiting from this situation and not actually fixing it. You don't see many companies putting down their money to make chip fabs in America, but instead it's the American government who's paying. Ohio giving Intel $20 Billion to create a chip factory will do a lot more to fix this problem than whatever damage Bestbuy is doing.
Click to expand...
One could make the argument that the "destructive economic policies" of the past, i.e. encouraging every manufacturer of pretty much everything to move their production overseas in an effort to enhance the bottom line, are the reason why no one invested in infrastructure in the United States. The corporate overlords know that they can use the leverage they have gained to extort the government into making concessions in the form of tax rebates and/or waivers, subsidized loans, or outright monetary grants. How many of these projects actually generate enough revenue to cover the initial outlay and how many fail before they even start like the Foxconn Wisconsin plant?

We have been on an unsustainable economic trajectory for decades. What we are seeing now are the byproducts. Add in significant (at least in our lifetimes) monetary inflation, tariff wars, a global pandemic, and the increased demand for electronics that comes with being locked down for an extended period of time and we start to see just how fragile the system has become.

You can't necessarily fault the scalper that flips GPUs for taking advantage of the situation, even if you may find it morally reprehensible. Totaltech may have advantages for some, but at its core it was always about making Best Buy more money, and it appears to be working as intended. Efforts to increase the chip supply will only go so far to alleviate some of the other issues experienced because, at the end of the day, there are enough intermediaries with their hands out looking for a cut of the action to keep prices high due to scarcity, and let's be real, the GPU manufacturers enjoy the fact that they are guaranteed to sell every chip they can produce.
 
DukenukemX said:
I cringe every time I read "entitled gamers". It's usually followed by gamers finding a work around for bullshit and the same people call them entitled for not paying.

Scalpers are the byproduct of limited supply and the ability to buy something from your home using a script to mass purchase. If you wanna buy a GPU you have AMD and Nvidia and that's it. Intel will soon be a third but three competitors is not healthy competition. AMD and Nvidia have been caught multiple times in the past price fixing, so who's to say they still aren't? Even Xbox and Playstation are techno feudalism because you can't just buy a game and play it on either console. You must buy a game for that specific platform or it won't work. If you add Nintendo then you have three competitors for the console market, though I would argue there's only really two.

Limited choice plus ability to purchase things without going to the store is how scalpers are thriving. Bestbuy is the free market trying to fix this by profiting from this situation and not actually fixing it. You don't see many companies putting down their money to make chip fabs in America, but instead it's the American government who's paying. Ohio giving Intel $20 Billion to create a chip factory will do a lot more to fix this problem than whatever damage Bestbuy is doing.
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Also a product of platforms that make it easy to scalp things like eBay and Amazon, that don't wish to stop it. It is actually something that could be cut down on a TON if the online resellers like that wanted to. It would not be hard to programmatically make it so that you can't list certain items above MSRP, and to ban accounts who try and circumvent it. Of course they are not at all interested in that, they are happy to skim their percentage and ignore it.

But if you cut that out, it would put a serious damper on the scalping culture that has developed. It would still happen, people can still buy things and advertise them locally, but without an easy online marketplace to sell through it wouldn't be nearly so easy to make a lot of profit on it.
 
chameleoneel said:
And why would you argue that? Nintendo has been killing with hardware and software sales. Hardware sales were about half of their earnings for fiscal year 2021:

https://www.hardwaretimes.com/ninte...rdware-was-2x-more-than-the-ps4-ps5-and-xbox/
Click to expand...
The reason I argue that is because Nintendo can't play many of the games available on the PS5 and Xbox Series. By can't I don't mean that Microsoft won't port Halo Infinite but doesn't have the capability to do so. But of course Nintendo won't port their games to other platforms because it would cannibalize their Switch sales. If you want a complete gaming experience you can't just own a Switch. The Switch just supplements gaming when you aren't home in front of a console or PC.

sfsuphysics said:
I would argue one maybe. Just three separate ones, if you get a video card amd, nvidia or Intel then what you do with them is more or less identical. You get a ps5 then you cant exactly borrow games from your friend with the xbox, or buy a copy of Smash Bros
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That's ewaste. Lots of people advocate for buying all the platforms to play games but all the hardware with the exception of the Switch all run x86 CPU's with identical graphics. They don't all run the same games because exclusives. Now if you want to play Mario Odyssey, Fallout 5, and God of War More War, then you need to own multiple hardware. God forbid you play World of Warcraft, then you also need a PC. We have a shortage of silicon with scalpers taking advantage of it along with ewaste and techno feudalism. By techno feudalism I mean that as soon as you enter the Xbox or Playstation environment you have stepped out of capitalism. You can't buy any game to play it on any hardware that you own. There's absolutely people who own multiple gaming hardware just to play games which just fuels the silicon shortage, and as a byproduct also fuels the scalping and increasing prices. I would suggest that we force manufacturers to go with a standard so that Xbox games also work on Playstation and vice versa because that would be an open free market. But because it's regulation then every right leaning person loses their shit.

MrCaffeineX said:
One could make the argument that the "destructive economic policies" of the past, i.e. encouraging every manufacturer of pretty much everything to move their production overseas in an effort to enhance the bottom line, are the reason why no one invested in infrastructure in the United States.
Click to expand...
Who exactly forced who to move manufacturing out of United States? You think China forced Steve Jobs to make their crappy iPhones there? No "destructive economic policies" forced manufacturers to seek a profit motive. Profit motive is what drove them to look overseas.
The corporate overlords know that they can use the leverage they have gained to extort the government into making concessions in the form of tax rebates and/or waivers, subsidized loans, or outright monetary grants.
Click to expand...
I don't like the idea of giving corporations money to do things because usually they just take the money and don't do it. In fact they'll just ask for more money.
We have been on an unsustainable economic trajectory for decades. What we are seeing now are the byproducts. Add in significant (at least in our lifetimes) monetary inflation, tariff wars, a global pandemic, and the increased demand for electronics that comes with being locked down for an extended period of time and we start to see just how fragile the system has become.
Click to expand...
I'd argue that 2008 never ended. My belief is that since people got more free time to stay home then the demand for new electronics has increased. That and because people are sick of working 40 hours to be in a family that dumped them faster than they can say good bye.
You can't necessarily fault the scalper that flips GPUs for taking advantage of the situation, even if you may find it morally reprehensible.
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I don't blame the flippers because they're smart. It isn't the flippers fault that hardware is limited and that people are willing to pay ridiculous prices for hardware. They're taking advantage of stupid people, and rightfully so. The problem is that manufacturers are also taking advantage of the same stupid people, and there's a lot of stupid people. Limited competition and supply is the main reason this is happening, not the flippers.
 
Darunion said:
"Destructive economic policies".....other than you learned a new phrase today what are you referring to?

This is just someone utilizing the free market. He saw best buy as a supplier of something he could resell. People do this on ebay all the time. I've seen a friend make side money just buying shower curtains at target and ebaying for twice as much.
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He's not referring to scalping as 'destructive economic policies' though, he says it's a byproduct of that. Now what those policies are that are destructive I'm not going to answer.

That said, the free market ain't so free when you need to buy an admission ticket to become a part of it, and perhaps this is one of said "destructive policies" that are being referred to. *shrug*
 
sfsuphysics said:
He's not referring to scalping as 'destructive economic policies' though, he says it's a byproduct of that. Now what those policies are that are destructive I'm not going to answer.

That said, the free market ain't so free when you need to buy an admission ticket to become a part of it, and perhaps this is one of said "destructive policies" that are being referred to. *shrug*
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I guess I don't see total tech membership as a economic policy anymore than I would costco or sam's. And would rather government or any other entity keep its hands out of things.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I would argue one maybe. Just three separate ones, if you get a video card amd, nvidia or Intel then what you do with them is more or less identical. You get a ps5 then you cant exactly borrow games from your friend with the xbox, or buy a copy of Smash Bros
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I can't borrow your copy of cyberpunk either. What's your point?
 
travm said:
I can't borrow your copy of cyberpunk either. What's your point?
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My point is video game consoles are only competing with each other at the corporate level, at the consumer level people who want a PS5 aren't competing with people who want an Xbox or a Switch. With graphics cards you want to see all the pretty bells and whistles you have options.
 
1_rick said:
I literally bought a 6800 online from Best Buy a week ago and didn't have to get Totaltech.
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Yeah pretty much any and all AMD cards are always in stock at my local Micro Center. I can go down there right now and pick up anything from their current RDNA2 stack. The Nvidia cards on the other hand appear to sell out every day.

Anyway, not surprised. The scalpers can afford to get into a more exclusive list and you can technically buy as many cards as you want by just doing it one at a time with a bot.
 
Availability is improving, it's just a last minute cash grab by Bestbuy. It also helps them combat the bot problem they've been having. People who want cards at MSRP aren't buying this membership to get them, this membership is to make maximum money off miners and scalpers.

I won't even pretend I'm that offended. I'm certainly not surprised.

nVidia might be less than impressed with Bestbuy trying to sell a membership to gate-keep their FE cards. Maybe they DGAF, I don't know. It's not Like nVidia doesn't love the idea of RECURRENT USER SPENDING ENGAGEMENT!
 
Sir Beregond said:
No it's not. This is how the scalpers are getting into TotalTech and still winding up with 20 cards on a drop. Its just not all the same order, the bot buys one card at a time.
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It is possible that the goal was extra money and push away bots, but maybe it was implemented by someone(s) who has no idea how they function so it did nothing to stop the bots.
 
Darunion said:
It is possible that the goal was extra money and push away bots, but maybe it was implemented by someone(s) who has no idea how they function so it did nothing to stop the bots.
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True. Not necessary attributing malice here on Best Buy's part...with regards to bots. Just saying its not fixing it.
 
Sir Beregond said:
No it's not. This is how the scalpers are getting into TotalTech and still winding up with 20 cards on a drop. Its just not all the same order, the bot buys one card at a time.
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It's not to combat the bots buying the cards. It's to combat the bots that are crushing their website with every card drop they do. They're perfectly happy with a member of the program smashing their website and buying 20 cards, he paid for the privilege. It's the reprobates that think they can do it for free that they want to stop.

I listened to a guy from Bestbuy say that 95% of their day one purchases are by bots and that they disallow 90% of those because they can prove the purchase was made by a bot. While I don't believe they disallow 90% of the sales, it does tell you what their public facing approach is.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
It's not to combat the bots buying the cards. It's to combat the bots that are crushing their website with every card drop they do. They're perfectly happy with a member of the program smashing their website and buying 20 cards, he paid for the privilege. It's the reprobates that think they can do it for free that they want to stop.

I listened to a guy from Bestbuy say that 95% of their day one purchases are by bots and that they disallow 90% of those because they can prove the purchase was made by a bot. While I don't believe they disallow 90% of the sales, it does tell you what their public facing approach is.
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Good point. I hadn't thought of it like that. And very interesting stats.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
It's not to combat the bots buying the cards. It's to combat the bots that are crushing their website with every card drop they do. They're perfectly happy with a member of the program smashing their website and buying 20 cards, he paid for the privilege. It's the reprobates that think they can do it for free that they want to stop.

I listened to a guy from Bestbuy say that 95% of their day one purchases are by bots and that they disallow 90% of those because they can prove the purchase was made by a bot. While I don't believe they disallow 90% of the sales, it does tell you what their public facing approach is.
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meanwhile stores you can actually walk into are closing everywhere.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
It's not to combat the bots buying the cards. It's to combat the bots that are crushing their website with every card drop they do. They're perfectly happy with a member of the program smashing their website and buying 20 cards, he paid for the privilege. It's the reprobates that think they can do it for free that they want to stop.

I listened to a guy from Bestbuy say that 95% of their day one purchases are by bots and that they disallow 90% of those because they can prove the purchase was made by a bot. While I don't believe they disallow 90% of the sales, it does tell you what their public facing approach is.
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People have way too much money, hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years we fix that problem finally.
 
Nvidia / Best Buy's policies for selling FE cards have gone a long way toward putting me off of team green in the future.

Meanwhile, AMD's "direct" sales via Digital River seem to have gotten better. I managed to get a 6700xt early last year, though the process took several weeks of me waiting for drops and was generally a shit show. Since then, bots completely overwhelmed AMDs webstore (last Summer) followed by (at some point since then) AMD/digital river implementing a queue system for Thursday morning sales where I guess you get placed in line with a random position. I know of two people who were able to buy cards at MSRP this way and neither was using bots... point is, there are reasonable ways to combat bots and scalpers and Nvidia/Best Buy clearly don't give a damn about trying. Better to run their brand through the mud to eek out a few more dollars than put cards in the hands of consumers.
 
sfsuphysics said:
My point is video game consoles are only competing with each other at the corporate level, at the consumer level people who want a PS5 aren't competing with people who want an Xbox or a Switch. With graphics cards you want to see all the pretty bells and whistles you have options.
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This silicon shortage has a lot to do with overlap as much as a shortage. People with more money than brains are going to buy a PS5, Xbox Series X, a Switch, and a $3k PC to play one game at a time. Not for multiple family members or friends but just for themselves. This doesn't need to happen and it didn't for nearly ten years. Imagine if you buy music and it's locked to a very specific piece of hardware. You'd be pissed. But somehow this is how games do it and it's fine. It shouldn't be fine but a lot of people here would argue that it is. One thing we can certainly do to help solve this problem is to force console manufacturers to agree to a standard and make games for that. Instead of selling consoles based on games they will have to sell it based on the hardware's capabilities.

Looking at Valve's Steam Deck show's that it can be done. The Deck isn't locked to Steam and it's cheap relatively compared to game console. It's certainly more powerful than the Nintendo Switch and could even emulate Switch games on it.
 
Darunion said:
"Destructive economic policies".....other than you learned a new phrase today what are you referring to?

This is just someone utilizing the free market. He saw best buy as a supplier of something he could resell. People do this on ebay all the time. I've seen a friend make side money just buying shower curtains at target and ebaying for twice as much.
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Maybe you can answer a question that I have had for a long time. I often see USED items on Ebay selling for MORE than the price of NEW items in stores. Are Ebay users stupid, lazy, or is there another reason (maybe shipping or non availability of the item where they are located) ?
 
i literally just started the hunt for a 3080 ti about a month ago and was ready to try for one on the next best buy drop... which happened to be when they added the "total tech" requirement BS. i've heard you can refund it immediately even if you do snag a card but i'm not sure about that.

it's incredibly scummy by both best buy and nvidia because best buy is the sole US distributor for nvidia founder's edition cards...

it's really hard to imagine things will ever return to what we considered "normal" as far as buying GPUs. maybe it'll be part of the inevitable push towards cloud gaming. "why stress over the struggle to buy a GPU when you can let OUR gpus do all the hard work!"
 
rinaldo00 said:
Maybe you can answer a question that I have had for a long time. I often see USED items on Ebay selling for MORE than the price of NEW items in stores. Are Ebay users stupid, lazy, or is there another reason (maybe shipping or non availability of the item where they are located) ?
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Drop shippers. I doubt they get many sales, but when they do it is pure profit after the ebay fees. I think the angle is to list something just a bit higher than retail + fees and do so at a large enough volume to rack up sales / have some ebay store clout. Then, either by luck or promoted listing, they get these drop shipped items in front of customers that are either uninformed or who have an ebay bucks coupon in hand.

That's the gist. Though I don't understand it either, seems like a hell of a lot of work to list hundreds or thousands of items for a few sales at very low profit margin. I guess since they're drop shipping there is very little risk to the seller and the seller doesn't have to stock an inventory - maybe that is the appeal?
 
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