The Shrine

This, literally, made my day... hahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQS8pGw1M0

Win

oh that is fucking brilliant.

That was fucking awesome =)

I could have sworn you could buy two iPhones per person. I guess that was only at the Apple stores though.

Dumb bitch. Scalping like that should be illegal. Of course, scalping is eBay's only market nowadays.

Oh wow....thats just priceless

SineSwiper wrote:Dumb bitch. Scalping like that should be illegal. Of course, scalping is eBay's only market nowadays.

Why illegalize something like that? I know the whole arguement that you don't want the rich to have everything, but as long as the supply chain itself isn't subject to bribery, why not let the citizens get their money if someone wants to pay them for it? That guy sat in line for a day, if it's worth $800 to him, let him sell it and make the money. If I have seasons tickets to the leafs and they may the playoffs (I'm talking about the future here.....), why shouldn't I be able to sell them to the highest bidder? If some idiot wants to pay me $155 US for a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga, why shouldn't I be able to sell it (I paid $17 Cdn for it ;-)?

At the end of the day, it's getting rewarded for the work you put in if there's no corruption. I see nothing wrong with it as long as it's not forced.

Zeus...the problem with scalping, and it's ALWAYS been THE problem with scalping, is exactly what this woman tried to do.

It's one thing to scalp on an individual/small scale, but when you go into a store intent on buying their entire stock of Hot Product X just so you can turn a profit on eBay is asinine and wrong for everyone involved.

The entire problem here lies in intention. As long as you don't buy something with the intention of turning right around and selling it for a higher price then it's fine. Apple wanted to sell their product to the public for $500, they did not want to sell it for $500 to a scalper who then turns around and fucks their customers by charging $900 because they bought out the supply. They bring NOTHING to the supply chain except the fact that they were selfish and dickish enough to buy up the supply so no one else could have any.

She should have gotten mugged and then raped with a rusty pole on the way home...can't stand people like that.

If you want one, it's up to you to go and get it. If there happens to be a situation where the supply doesn't come close to meeting demand, then you have to line up or find another way of getting it, like, say, paying for it on Ebay.

Like I said before, as long as the supply chain isn't being compromised (like one person being able to buy up the entire stock), I really don't see anything wrong with it. If you get a group of people who want to band together knowing they can only get one each and they go and line up for a couple of days at all these different stores, they put the effort forth to do it. Good for them, they can do whatever the heck they want to with it, even turn around and sell it immediately for a profit.

They worked for it (or in the case of that woman, paid for it) so why shouldn't they be able to reap the benefits? You're assuming people have a moral obligation to do "what they're supposed to" with the products they buy.

So you don't think there's anything wrong with what this woman tried to do? Pay her way to the front of the line and buy every phone in the store and fuck over every other person waiting in line? How could they have avoided that?

If you do, then we're just saying the same damn thing man... I have no problem with small scale scalping-- people with season tickets selling unwanted games, etc... but when you're stealing items out of consumers hands for no other reason than to turn a profit...when your only difference was your ability to soak up supply... you need to be put in a special circle of hell.

Tessian wrote:So you don't think there's anything wrong with what this woman tried to do? Pay her way to the front of the line and buy every phone in the store and fuck over every other person waiting in line? How could they have avoided that?

If you do, then we're just saying the same damn thing man... I have no problem with small scale scalping-- people with season tickets selling unwanted games, etc... but when you're stealing items out of consumers hands for no other reason than to turn a profit...when your only difference was your ability to soak up supply... you need to be put in a special circle of hell.

That's what I meant when I referred to the supply chain stuff. Yeah, if one person is able to get all of it, regardless of the method, then it's an issue. But if she wants to go around town and buy up the max any store would let her, all the power to her.

I do admit I had to laugh at her for paying $800 for the rights to just one phone. But if she were able to get all of them then good on her. I'd be pissed if I wanted one (I hate cellphones) but you really can't blame her for do it if she can.

A friend of mine knew someone who actually did that and started up a business. In 1991 when the quarters were minted up here, they decided to make only 250,000 of them. That's incredibly low for any regular use coin run. The guy bought a box of them. That's 50 rolls of 40 quarters, so 2000, right from the bank. He gladly paid his $500. Shortly thereafter, the quarters jumped to about $10 EACH due to their scarcity (and the insanity of coin collectors). So he sold them off, bought a house, and started his own coin selling business.

Should he go to hell for that? See, I don't think so. Good on him for being a savvy consumer and turning into a business. I just wish I'd known about it :-)

Bought a house from $20,000?

Anyway, a coworker told me about somebody who got a hold of a class A set of IP addresses when the Internet was new. A class A is something like 192.*.*.*. So, he had 16 million addresses for maybe a few thousand dollars.

Later on, when IP space was getting scarce, he started selling off blocks of IPs to businesses that need it. Then somebody told him "Hey, why don't you lease these addresses?" The guy is now living on a beach without any worry about money.

SineSwiper wrote:Bought a house from $20,000?

Anyway, a coworker told me about somebody who got a hold of a class A set of IP addresses when the Internet was new. A class A is something like 192.*.*.*. So, he had 16 million addresses for maybe a few thousand dollars.

Later on, when IP space was getting scarce, he started selling off blocks of IPs to businesses that need it. Then somebody told him "Hey, why don't you lease these addresses?" The guy is now living on a beach without any worry about money.

Now that was a good idea!

SineSwiper wrote:Bought a house from $20,000?

Down payment....

Zeus, your example really has nothing to do with scalping... your friend didn't buy those coins with the intention of turning right around and selling them... that's most of an "investment" where he hoped they would appreciate in value...and lucky for him they did, then decided to make a business out of it. That's not scalping.

Tess, I don't really get the difference. It's essentially the same thing. He put the effort forth and obtained a significant portion of an item in order to sell it later at a profit. The guy didn't want 2000 quarters, he got them for the sole reason that they he expected them to be rare and to sell them off.

This woman tried to do the same thing except she paid for the pleasure of having the opportunity to obtain. What the heck is the difference?

Collector's items are on a totally different plane than what we're talking about... he was not buying up the supply of coins; there were millions of other coins in circulation, readily available, with the same exact legal tender value.

Tessian wrote:Collector's items are on a totally different plane than what we're talking about... he was not buying up the supply of coins; there were millions of other coins in circulation, readily available, with the same exact legal tender value.

There were 250,000 of the 1991 quarter minted, supply was EXTREMELY short. In the coin world, comparing one year to another is like comparing one cellphone to another. Saying "use the 1990 quarter instead, it's the same thing" is basically like saying "use the new Blackberry Pearl, it's the same thing". Different phones with different features but to a coin collector, it would be the same thing as different mints of coins.

He was trying to corner the market on the one product in order to sell it at a profit. No different than what this woman was trying to do. Just like there were other quarters, there are other all-in-one PDAs/cellphones out there. He should be just as fault as this woman, they were doing the same thing. It really is the same thing.

No, Zeus... you can't compare years of coins to types of phones.

1991 quarter is identical in EVERY WAY from a 1992, 1993, 2002...etc. It has the same exact legal tender value, minted by the same gov't organization, used for the same exact thing... 98% of the world don't even look at the year of the coins they use because it doesn't matter.

Cell phones are a totally different story. Now you're talking different features by different companies and different models with different plans and everything.

You're doing apples and oranges here Zeus, it doesn't work. If I want to buy a drink at a vending machine will it give two shits what quarter I give it? No. If I want to place a call does it matter what phone I use? Of course. Phones all have the same purpose, but the way they accomplish that purpose is varied in almost every way.

Sorry Zeus, but your analogy sucks ass. Different yeared currency has no effect on the end user in any way.