Sniing was Re: Microdata "Microprogramming Handbook"

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Sat Jan 26 11:01:24 2002

At 09:09 PM 1/25/2002 -0600, Tothwolf wrote:
>I was quite sick when I saw the seller trying to sell these off to
>uneducated buyers on ebay for $50 each. If someone had indeed bought one
>at that price, they would have been tempted to try to repair it when it
>did not work. People qualified to work on these units would tend to be
>educated buyers and not even consider paying $50 for a dead unit.

What are you suggesting? That a warning label might've
saved their lives, or just saved them from parting from their
cash? Or that the auctioneer's job is to accurately
represent the state of each gizmo, as opposed to saying "all
sales as-is and final", which is far easier and still manages
to attract plenty of buyers.

(This reminds me of the old marketing joke "If Company X
was in charge of Kentucky Fried Chicken, they'd call the
product "Hot Dead Chicken." Just to keep it on-topic,
I know this joke was repeated quite often in the Commodore
market over the years.)

The whole point of an auction is that it's a good way to
maximize profit while making a big pile of junk disappear.
Evaluating the goods (accurately or professionally) and
warning the buyers about nitpicks isn't profitable.
Maybe someone buys dead UPSes to recover the lead in the
batteries, who knows.

And auctions are great fun for game theorists and economists,
many of whom have made careers and won gold medals for determining
nifty phenomena such as the way that the winner tends to overpay.

- John
Received on Sat Jan 26 2002 - 11:01:24 GMT