UK looking to ban scalpers

Rights.

If health care is a human "right", then the healthcare workers are...what? Forced to work for you? Or, everyone else has to work for you and contribute to your healthcare costs?

That's a not a right: that's servitude.
Hyperbole much? From every proposal I’ve seen, based on other countries that provide health care, These workers either end up as government contractors or civil servants. It’s no different than NASA employees or a NASA contractor.

Since hospitals don’t turn away patients, you already are paying for their care at the most expensive state, so there is no change there. You also pay whatever premiums for whatever insurance company your employer chooses, thus creating a risk pool where everyone in the pool pays for healthcare for the fraction that need it. So, no change there either.
 
Agreed, very off topic at this point.

back on topic, my perspective is:
Individual dude standing in line at microcenter to buy a card to flip it. Have fun.

Bot nets that can fundamentally alter market conditions? No bueno - nuke ‘em from orbit.

I agreed with both...guy at MC and No bueno on BoTs. The sticking point is the manner in which the latter is handled. IMHO, NO government involvment. The tech is there to produce bots. The tech is also there to stop them. Retailers can and have done it. Incentives to do so must be compelling. When it is boiled down the core, it is very simple. Free Markets. Emotionally tuff pill to swallow, but if one is being 100% intellectually honest, its a slam dunk. ( I am aware there are really lazy, stupid people out there who can't wrap their feeble minds around a concept like that, so guys like Bernie Sanders will always have a chance.)
 
I agreed with both...guy at MC and No bueno on BoTs. The sticking point is the manner in which the latter is handled. IMHO, NO government involvment. The tech is there to produce bots. The tech is also there to stop them. Retailers can and have done it. Incentives to do so must be compelling. When it is boiled down the core, it is very simple. Free Markets. Emotionally tuff pill to swallow, but if one is being 100% intellectually honest, its a slam dunk. ( I am aware there are really lazy, stupid people out there who can't wrap their feeble minds around a concept like that, so guys like Bernie Sanders will always have a chance.)
IMHO - the ideal solution is for the retailers to handle it, but I also think they have so little motivation to do so that they are going to need to be told to do so. We’ve see this kind of thing every so often, and usually it takes some disaster to force the governments hand and make the companies comply into acting in their own best interest. For example, Exxon would have been best off in the long run to move to double hulled tankers, but instead they fought it until the Valdez spill, which ended up being more expensive in the end for everyone. The more incidents you see like that, the more it becomes apparent that governments really need to be proactive.
 
Bots are used to snap up available stock.

The only reason people use these bots are so they can; 1, use the cards; 2, sell the cards at a profit.

If they're using them (mining, tri-sli, building gaming rigs, etc.) that's the breaks.

If they're planning to sell them at a profit...well, don't buy from third-party resellers. Either direct from the manufacturer for from retailers. That means you've got to push your "demand" down. Sucks...but there it is.

Once there's no longer enough profit in it for third-party folks to do this, then they'll stop snatching up all the inventory. That will allow an increase in the supply to the rest of us.

Shrug. I'm not happy that I cannot buy a card I want at a reasonable price. It's not something that affects my well-being. It's a leisure time activity: a hobby.

I can't see any effective "anti-bot" legislation or other enforcement being effective. If bots are banned, they'll just get a squad of folks to line up first and buy them...and then pass those increased costs along to "normal" users.
 
Bots. I knew we had a problem when they were farming in WoW, but I didn’t think they would actually take our graphics cards away!

It has been a problem for a while...
A0A1B8A6-DA03-4325-B6F8-19799EF6CDBB.jpeg


Edit: look closer, the mid section is a midtower PC and that green glow is some NVIDIA related RGB. Kirk has ZERO chance of obtaining a graphics card this season.
 
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The government should definitely step in. Government intervention and regulations are SOMETIMES a good thing, and I think this would actually be a perfectly applicable situation for them to step up to the plate. Is there potential for something to go wrong? SURE. But I would rather have a potential fix, rather than a completely hollow and meaningless sentiment of "oh well if people just stopped supporting scalpers!".

I get that it's great to have principles and independence, but sometimes I wonder if people have the thinking on this completely backwards. If there was any truth to the "market solving all of its own problems", we wouldn't be encountering this problem in the first place. Meanwhile, you're supporting the same thing the scalpers support while they laugh their ways to the bank. Great job.
 
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The government should definitely step in. Government intervention and regulations are SOMETIMES a good thing, and I think this would actually be a perfectly applicable situation for them to step up to the plate. Is there potential for something to go wrong? SURE. But I would rather have a potential fix, rather than a completely hollow and meaningless sentiment of "oh well if people just stopped supporting scalpers!".

I get that it's great to have principles and independence, but sometimes I wonder if people have the thinking on this completely backwards. If there was any truth to the "market solving all of its own problems", we wouldn't be encountering this problem in the first place. Meanwhile, you're supporting the same thing the scalpers support while they laugh their ways to the bank. Great job.
Nope. Wrong. Emotion over intellect once again. The market is working. Supply and Demand. Basic economics at play. Anyone CAN do the same thing as the scalpers. Make/buy/build a bot, buy until your heart's content, flip them for a obscene amount of money. Now, does it make sense for everyone to do it? College student on a super tight budget? Hmmm...yep, take tuition/books/rent/beer/weed money and do it. Wealthy hipster, yes. Housewife with 4 kids, yep. Anyone CAN do it, but most are not willing to be assholes, or take risk, or go out on a limb to make money that way. Either way, its the market at work. Intellect over emotion FTW. (Get ready, here comes some emotional responses.)
 
A better way, in theory at least, would be to heavily tax the excessive profits on scalping. But it's only in theory, because how do you determine what's excessive profit? And it won't always be easily obvious, that someone's income is from scalping.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Nope. Wrong. Emotion over intellect once again. The market is working. Supply and Demand. Basic economics at play. Anyone CAN do the same thing as the scalpers. Make/buy/build a bot, buy until your heart's content, flip them for a obscene amount of money. Now, does it make sense for everyone to do it? College student on a super tight budget? Hmmm...yep, take tuition/books/rent/beer/weed money and do it. Wealthy hipster, yes. Housewife with 4 kids, yep. Anyone CAN do it, but most are not willing to be assholes, or take risk, or go out on a limb to make money that way. Either way, its the market at work. Intellect over emotion FTW. (Get ready, here comes some emotional responses.)

Except the only reason scalping works is that not everyone does it, if everyone would do it, noone would sell anything anymore and be stuck with said item. Also more scalpers does not mean more inventory, just more competition for said inventory.
 
Except the only reason scalping works is that not everyone does it, if everyone would do it, noone would sell anything anymore and be stuck with said item. Also more scalpers does not mean more inventory, just more competition for said inventory.

This is not the market working any more than locusts eating up the crops of a field is farming working. In this case the locusts pay, but they still create scarcity and inflated prices that would not otherwise exist but for their pestilence.

This is anti-consumer behavior and it should be regulated.
 
This is not the market working any more than locusts eating up the crops of a field is farming working. In this case the locusts pay, but they still create scarcity and inflated prices that would not otherwise exist but for their pestilence.

This is anti-consumer behavior and it should be regulated.
That is so, so wrong.
 
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Luxury item, say it with me now, Luxury Item.
Scalping only works if people are willing to pay. ONLY works, if people are willing to pay.
People are mad because they were priced out of ownership of this luxury item for the time being due to scarcity and the willingness of people to pay more than them for the item. As supply equalizes with demand, the prices will come down. The scalping will cease.
 
Luxury item, say it with me now, Luxury Item.
Scalping only works if people are willing to pay. ONLY works, if people are willing to pay.
People are mad because they were priced out of ownership of this luxury item for the time being due to scarcity and the willingness of people to pay more than them for the item. As supply equalizes with demand, the prices will come down. The scalping will cease.
Unless the scalpers decide they want to control the market. They could burn their profits to keep cards off the market, waiting until the right moment to dump everything extra below msrp. The goal would be to stick with Nvidia with as much 3000 stock as possible and then price control the 4000 series. Either Nvidia caves and relinquishes control to the scalpers, or they get stuck with stock each generation.
 
Unless the scalpers decide they want to control the market. They could burn their profits to keep cards off the market, waiting until the right moment to dump everything extra below msrp. The goal would be to stick with Nvidia with as much 3000 stock as possible and then price control the 4000 series. Either Nvidia caves and relinquishes control to the scalpers, or they get stuck with stock each generation.

Uhhh.... what? Nvidia already made their profit. They can't "loose". I mean sure, people buying to flip can hang onto their cards for a year or more. But the value will go down when the 4*** series comes out. Unless they want to loose money I'm not sure what they would gain.

There is simply no way flippers can control the market. They have to pay MSRP + transaction fees + sales tax + shipping. To break even you need to sell 20% or more of the standard price. They can buy all of the supply up but they'll end up with cards collecting dust. Once the profits dry up they'll be stuck with lots of items they can't move, and Newegg/Best Buy/whatever will have the same items new, with warranty, free shipping and $100-400 cheaper.
 
Uhhh.... what? Nvidia already made their profit. They can't "loose". I mean sure, people buying to flip can hang onto their cards for a year or more. But the value will go down when the 4*** series comes out. Unless they want to loose money I'm not sure what they would gain.

There is simply no way flippers can control the market. They have to pay MSRP + transaction fees + sales tax + shipping. To break even you need to sell 20% or more of the standard price. They can buy all of the supply up but they'll end up with cards collecting dust. Once the profits dry up they'll be stuck with lots of items they can't move, and Newegg/Best Buy/whatever will have the same items new, with warranty, free shipping and $100-400 cheaper.
They (the scalpers) buy up everything, doubling their money on everything they sell for the majority of the life of the product. As 4K series cards approach, they dump everything they have left at a loss, ideally stalling additional sales direct from Nvidia and leaving Nvidia with a bunch of dead inventory. The goal is to stick Nvidia with product at the end of the product life cycle to discourage them from trying to ramp production to saturate the scalpers ability to buy everything out. Repeat the process for each generation until Nvidia reduces volume early enough to not get stuck with dead inventory and the scalpers never lose control.

nvidia can’t infinitely increase production due to limited foundry space, and the margins don’t seem to be huge, as AIB cards are pretty much all above founders edition cost.
 
If best buy or any other retailer wants to implement captchas or policies to prevent bot buying and such, I'm all for it. I do not want the government meddling in the purchasing of luxury goods.

Government involvement would have unintended consequences or could be abused/misused. Why do we want old out of touch people meddling in technological affairs. When has that gone well?

Government: If you think the problem is bad, wait till you see our solution.
 
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They (the scalpers) buy up everything, doubling their money on everything they sell for the majority of the life of the product. As 4K series cards approach, they dump everything they have left at a loss, ideally stalling additional sales direct from Nvidia and leaving Nvidia with a bunch of dead inventory. The goal is to stick Nvidia with product at the end of the product life cycle to discourage them from trying to ramp production to saturate the scalpers ability to buy everything out. Repeat the process for each generation until Nvidia reduces volume early enough to not get stuck with dead inventory and the scalpers never lose control.
I am not so sure if I understand correctly, but to take this current situation for an example, if scalpers would have in september/october dumbed ton of Turing at a really low price, if would have made buying a really expensive 3080 way less interesting and nonsensical for the 3060ti/3070.

I would imagine the same happening if the scalper would dump cheap 3080 and trying to release 4080 with a huge margin at the same time, imagine if cheap 20xx and 5700-5700xt were something possible to easily buy right now how it would change the situation a lot. Has for discouraging production and launch volume, that could be true that deflating interested with old cards at a low price could do so, but only if the production was closer to meet demand and the amount by which that strategy reduce demand (and thus discourage supply) would also reduce the price the scalping product could go, if someone could easily by a brand new sealed box 2080TI for $400 right now, paying a big scalping price for a 3080 would suddenly stop to be something many are into, forget the 3070.

nvidia can’t infinitely increase production due to limited foundry space, and the margins don’t seem to be huge, as AIB cards are pretty much all above founders edition cost.
Gross margin are probably giant on those product, in the 50% and better, AIB cards are above founders edition in part because Nvidia/AMD can charge them a lot.

I am not sure if the scalpers have that much control (i.e. how much are actually being bought by professional scalper right now) and if planning that long term (with the giant risk it occur) instead of caching on the money right away would make sense and they would need to coordinate between them, the second all scalper stop selling the one that go out rank get sell for a much higher price, making that type of coordination almost impossible to occur.
 
I don't get the complaints about supply/demand for luxury items and then wanting to legislate it. You don't need a GPU. You want a GPU. Be patient and you'll get one.

Go try to buy a C8 Corvette for MSRP. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. No different than GPU's. Limited supply, high demand, prices go up. Pretty simple. Wait for supply to go up and you're golden.

I used to complain about ticket scalping until I learned to take advantage of the scalpers. I often get my concert tickets for less than face price because they have to dump them the day before or day of concert. Win for me because I'm patient.
 
I don't get the complaints about supply/demand for luxury items and then wanting to legislate it. You don't need a GPU. You want a GPU. Be patient and you'll get one.

Go try to buy a C8 Corvette for MSRP. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. No different than GPU's. Limited supply, high demand, prices go up. Pretty simple. Wait for supply to go up and you're golden.

I used to complain about ticket scalping until I learned to take advantage of the scalpers. I often get my concert tickets for less than face price because they have to dump them the day before or day of concert. Win for me because I'm patient.
Entitlement generation at play... "Everyone wins! You're a winner and you should always have every luxury at the time, price, and date you csn afford!"
 
Entitlement generation at play... "Everyone wins! You're a winner and you should always have every luxury at the time, price, and date you csn afford!"
So you have no issue if OPEC decides that they are going to diversify and use billions dollars to coordinate controlling the consumer electronics market via bots?

yeah, I thought not.
 
The Free Market is a myth and a smokescreen. A rigged market if ever there was one. You just have to accept that.
I've been a big "free market" guy in the past and I'm long past it now. I've both sides of this fence and all I can do at this point is agree with you. If anything the real issue above anything it comes down to how these issues are framed for us, and who benefits from framing these issues in such an extreme way (e.g. zero regulation versus over-regulation). In this specific case we know what outcomes we want : no scalpers. By this point we also know that zero regulation leads to the market being taken advantage of (because as you mentioned, it will not correct itself), and over-regulation could easily lead to a similar result. The answer becomes obvious... we need specific regulation that addresses the issue in a way that's more or less roughly fair to everyone, nothing more and nothing less. I agree that in a Western governments these days it make be too much to ask for (which is reasonable explanation why people are afraid of too much regulation on their lives), but that doesn't change the fact that as people we should want our government to work on our behalf and in our favor.

Pretending that these man-made systems are self-correcting is for suckers. It makes you a sucker because it lets those taking advantage of you continue to take advantage while you are distracted by ideals and principals that literally have zero relevance to reality.
I don't get the complaints about supply/demand for luxury items and then wanting to legislate it. You don't need a GPU. You want a GPU. Be patient and you'll get one.

Go try to buy a C8 Corvette for MSRP. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. No different than GPU's. Limited supply, high demand, prices go up. Pretty simple. Wait for supply to go up and you're golden.

I used to complain about ticket scalping until I learned to take advantage of the scalpers. I often get my concert tickets for less than face price because they have to dump them the day before or day of concert. Win for me because I'm patient.
You even admit that scalping is an issue, up until you can think of the one instance of where you benefits you. So...why not consider everyone else? Of all the actors in the scenario -why do you feel the need to defend scalpers? Because you can think of one instance of where you can take advantage of them? Good for you...but obviously the issue is bigger than yourself.
 
I've been a big "free market" guy in the past and I'm long past it now. I've both sides of this fence and all I can do at this point is agree with you. If anything the real issue above anything it comes down to how these issues are framed for us, and who benefits from framing these issues in such an extreme way (e.g. zero regulation versus over-regulation). In this specific case we know what outcomes we want : no scalpers. By this point we also know that zero regulation leads to the market being taken advantage of (because as you mentioned, it will not correct itself), and over-regulation could easily lead to a similar result. The answer becomes obvious... we need specific regulation that addresses the issue in a way that's more or less roughly fair to everyone, nothing more and nothing less. I agree that in a Western governments these days it make be too much to ask for (which is reasonable explanation why people are afraid of too much regulation on their lives), but that doesn't change the fact that as people we should want our government to work on our behalf and in our favor.

Pretending that these man-made systems are self-correcting is for suckers. It makes you a sucker because it lets those taking advantage of you continue to take advantage while you are distracted by ideals and principals that literally have zero relevance to reality.

You even admit that scalping is an issue, up until you can think of the one instance of where you benefits you. So...why not consider everyone else? Of all the actors in the scenario -why do you feel the need to defend scalpers? Because you can think of one instance of where you can take advantage of them? Good for you...but obviously the issue is bigger than yourself.


Yeah, as I said earlier on I don't think this legislation is really aimed at GPUs and luxury items. I think they picked those items because they resonate with the public right now. I think the more likely specific targets are things like PPE and safety/medical equipment.
 
The only way I can manage to cope with these is to text as many craigslist sellers I can and arrange meets where I try to make them go through as many hoops as I can and never show up. Yeah, i'm petty but it's fun fucking with their bottom line...most of these losers can barely put food on their table and I want to make it even harder for them to eat.
 
When I was a kid in the 1990's, I waited in line to buy beanie babies just so I could re-sell them to a small local shop for a profit. I made like $70.

I feel terrible about it now :(
 
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