Thanks for the history lesson, though i wouldn't pat yourself on the back too much. Making a profit off of an item you had no investment in designing, constructing, marketing, or distributing strikes me as bullshit theft.
Lets not get into the historic risks involved with "bartering" spices, silk, jewels, animals, humans, weaponry, etc etc etc. Clicking a button an Amazon (little to no risk) and then flipping said item for a profit is petty. Don't argue otherwise.
I will argue otherwise. Whether or not you like retail does this very activity, they buy something by clicking buttons and then resell it at a profit. It's far less bullshit than collecting rents which makes up such an enormous part of our sad economy.
Also the person is clearly taking part in the distribution. If Amazon makes 15% on each PS4 that comes to 60 bucks. If the buyer wants fast shipping it will cost them 8 bucks. The buyer then needs to put in time to find someone to resell the unit. This takes time. And if you are dealing with people on CL it takes a lot of time to communicate with flakes. Then one needs to make the exchange and there is no way that any sane person can say that this part of the deal has little to no risk when cash and an item that cost the seller at least 400 + tax. One also needs to arrange to actually receive the item. This could entail waiting at one's home on a work day or even driving to the shipping company to pick up an item that could not be delivered. This time also has value and you cannot argue otherwise.
Best case scenario which is how my deal went down last night after posting here and doing research on ebay. ( To me it is more about seeing what I could do given that I had an extra unit so you could add market research to the above list of things that need to be done outside of hitting a button) Anyway, the deal last night. Went on Amazon, found message board during lunch, posted to it saying I had a unit up for grabs. ( 3 minutes). Came back home after work saw reply, posted reply with my email ( 1 minute). Received email asking how much, sent screenshot, asked for address waited for reply ( 2 minutes effort, 10 minutes waiting near the computer when I would rather be in the living room). Read reply, made an offer with a price: cost + $50, ( 15 minutes I was so close to saying at cost but I kept coming back to how much time this would take). Read email accepting that and asking how to complete transaction ( < 1 min). Composed email response detailing how to get Amazon gift credit, how I could change address, asking what information he required to be able to trust me. ( 20 min I take my time when I write to make sure nothing dickish sounding slips in unintentionally). He replied revealing that he was a little uneasy about it but since he wanted it he said he would accept a picture of my CCard with only last 4 digits showing. I one upped that by giving a picture with my CCard and my license that had some details edited. ( ~ 20 minutes to get camera, take picture, put SD card into computer, realize first picture sucked, take second pic, etc). Then I waited an hour or so for him to get home after work. At this point I had to walk him through the gift card purchase and change the address. It took over 30 minutes to do this because he asked for my B1G1 code and I tried to see if I could re-use it to add some games to the system and that I had to jump through hoops to change the address.
With those totals the whole transaction took me 102 minutes of my life directed solely at "flipping" a preorder for $50 bucks. Add to that posting here, on CL, looking at ebay, etc and it adds the fuck up. My paycheck says I make more than that per hour doing much more interesting things. Granted my motivation was to see that someone got the unit instead of it going back into the pool, but my point is that for a very simple, low risk transaction it took me a lot of valuable time to complete. I would not begrudge anyone for trying to make a quick grab of a couple of hundred bucks for a couple of hours of work.
Time is money and there is no free lunch when it comes to this shit. It's not worth it financially to someone with a real job. Flip this thing around. What about a parent looking for a PS4? Scalpers will not have so many that every store would have them otherwise unless it tanks like the WiiU. How much time would a parent have to spend calling stores, going to the mall, looking online, etc? If they want one for their kid, a couple of hundred extra bucks is cheap compared to working to find one.
When I was younger and poorer, I hated scalpers because my perception of money was a little different. Now I think it is not worth the time unless its a 100% return.
