| runqvist said:
Excuse me? A "scalper" offers a service to customers, who are more than willing to spend money to use that service. Last time I offered this service, I actually got a postcard after christmas. It was a picture of a very happy kid playing with his Wii and my valued customer expressed his sincere gratitude for my service. I guess he had that "real value" from my service. Heck, I was so flattered of that card that I sent the kid one of my extra copies of Wii Play in return for free. |
No, scalpers create or worsen a shortage to artificially inflate prices for personal profit. There is no product or service provided, there is only creation and exploitation of a problem. Without scalpers individuals and manufacturers would still be able to buy/sell products, while the same can not be (generally) said about retailers. Regardless of whether you scalped the Wii or not, someone (possibly the family you sold it to) would have bought the Wii and would have enjoyed it over the holiday season; you provided no additional benefit to the economy or society in general, you just took people's money.
All versions of scalpers are a form of economic parasite draining the host for no good. Next time you fill up your gas tank and see the prices increase think about those Wall Street speculators who are driving up the price of gas, skimming off the top while offering no value, and realize that you're doing the exact same thing.
