The difficulty of selling a Wii

[NJ5]

sinha said:

twesterm said:

FreeTalkLive rocks! said:

 

Dude, what on Earth are you talking about? If only two parties are involed and no one gets hurt, he is not being a dick. He is a willing seller and he is looking for a willing buyer. If someone thinks that a Wii is worth $300 then they are both helping each other out. Someone will not buy from him unless they think as Wii is worth at least $300. It is called the free market and it is one of the most wonderful things in the world. You are the one that is acting like a dick by calling him names for trying to help people. Seriously, why are you down on people that help others? If anything, you should be thanking him for making the world a better place :) OK, maybe that was a bit much, but I hope you get my point.

 

So he's helping people get a Wii buy buying one and then selling it for more than it's worth? He is doing nothing to help anyone out other than himself (he even admitted it) so don't try to defend him and say that he has some altruistic motive.

 

You're creating a false dichotomy. It's possible to "help people" (indirectly) without having an "altruistic motive"...

In fact, it happens all the time and is essentially the basis of the free market economic system that has proven to be quite effective at getting goods into the hands of those who value them.

Heck, Nintendo has a completely selfish and non-altruistic motive for making the Wii and selling it for $250, yet they are helping millions of gamers by doing so.

I think twesterm's point is that in terms of "helping", he's helping someone and unhelping someone else at the same time (the person who would pick up the Wii from the store if cdude didn't). So those factors either cancel out, does cdude think that the person who has access to Ebay has more right to the Wii than the other person, who might not have more than $250 to spend?

Personally, I think that the person who was going to the store but has potentially less money, is the one who should get the console.