The difficulty of selling a Wii

[Final-Fan]

And just because I like my lovely Flatland, here's the revised edition: [edit: version 2.2!]

Suppose there's a lake in Flatland. (Flatland is a hypothetical two-dimensional world, as if on a sheet of paper. Therefore, the lake is not defined by three-dimensional boundaries but is more like a puddle of water on a table.)

People live on the edge of this Flatlake, and use the water for various nonessential things such as watering their flatlawns. The rate at which the Flatlake replenishes to its natural maximum comes to be exceeded by the Flatlander's rate of water use, so the Flatlake shrinks. The Flatlanders now have to walk a certain distance in order to obtain their water.  Now, the lake is once again refilling, but only slowly, and the lakeshore is still far short of being full

cdude1034 is like an entrepeneur who offers, for a fee, to shift a portion of the Flatlake so that is is closer to one group of people -- and consequently further from others. cdude makes his profit, and some people benefit, but only by costing others their own access in equal proportion. He is taking a bucket that would have gone to someone for free and selling it to someone for a price.

The Flatlake is analogous to the Wii thusly: the full flatlake is "Wiis in stock in stores", while the reduced Flatlake is "Wiis available to people who get there soon after shipment arrives". The Flatlake's rate of replenishment is obviously shipments from Nintendo. cdude's lake-shifting is the Wiis he deprives People A on (let's say) the west lake shore to sell to People B on the eastern shore. I believe that my analogy is close enough to the Wii situation in the USA for any reasonable purpose.