As at example why this is a good thing, consider the latest X-Box consoles.
I tried two Christmases in a row to buy new game consoles for my kids, but they were never available. They sold out almost immediately. Some of that was too few being produced, but some was scalpers swooping in to take all stock before customers could. Scalpers would offer some for double or triple the price, but I refuse to support that behavior.
Scalpers directly lead to my frustration on the product, and giving them up, scalpers directly lead to my kids giving up XBox gaming altogether. Scalpers directly led to the entire eco-system losing the profits from a family that likely would have spent way too much, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Everyone lost, except the scalpers.
Retailers eventually started imposing purchase limits to reduce the impact of scalpers, but it was too little too late. the X-Box ecosystem lost customers who will never come back.
And Walmart. Fuck Walmart. I’ve read about the negative impact of Walmart but never had a strong opinion since I rarely used them anyway. But during the Xbox fiasco, their website offered scalper sales at some of the highest markups, their websites falsely reported Xboxes in stock to product finders when it was only scalper ads. Fuck that, and fuck any large retailer who refuses to support Apple Pay because they’re trying to force customers to use their shitty pay system
Yup. It was especially hilarious how many people on the various message boards and discords would talk about “Oh, this is the tenth PS5 that I found to buy for my friends”. And there were people dumb enough to think they weren’t scalping.
Which was actually nice. The Sony website queues were… bad. But it was tied to a PSN account which drastically limited how many an individual could buy. I am sure that, much like with Valve doing the same for the Steam Deck, is no longer effective because professional scalpers have like 40 accounts they bought a 2 dollar game on. But it made for a much nicer experience.
