UK politicians call for action against console and GPU scalpers

[WYP]

MPs have called for legislation to prevent the resale of consoles/components for "vast profits".



Read more about UK politicians calling for action against console and PC hardware scalpers.

 

[Greenback]

it's called capitalism, if people are stupid enough to pay the prices it's their fault for encouraging the behaviour, maybe the companies shouldn't release at a holiday time would be a better answer, you can't legislate against stupid

 

[grec]

it's called capitalism, if people are stupid enough to pay the prices it's their fault for encouraging the behaviour, maybe the companies shouldn't release at a holiday time would be a better answer, you can't legislate against stupid

Scalping undermines the "safety valves" of capitalism, scalpers mass buy products that would otherwise go to actual consumers, artificially restricting supply to consumers, the whole supply vs demand model of natural pricing regulation goes out the window when this area of exploit is left unregulated. It's like a much smaller scale version of stock market whaling in terms of its impacts on supply vs demand (At least on the scales of bot scalpers).

This kind of legislation is already in action in many segments of UK business and is incredibly useful to both consumers and legitimate small business, this kind of legislation on ticket sales has recently saved key sectors of the UK's live music industry for instance.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

I think some of the politicians are annoyed they aren't getting a PS5 for Christmas.

 

[Dicehunter]

it's called capitalism, if people are stupid enough to pay the prices it's their fault for encouraging the behaviour, maybe the companies shouldn't release at a holiday time would be a better answer, you can't legislate against stupid

It's not just capitalism, Any system in history is taken advantage of by immoral individuals, There should've been a law in place years ago stipulating that any product cannot be sold above MSRP no matter the situation.

 

[NeverBackDown]

It's not just capitalism, Any system in history is taken advantage of by immoral individuals, There should've been a law in place years ago stipulating that any product cannot be sold above MSRP no matter the situation.

That is the opposite of capitalism... that is just government regulating the market. That law would do more harm than good.

Emergencies are the only time the government should step in to ensure the safety and well being of the people it serves. Such as face masks and cleaning supplies.

 

[Dicehunter]

That is the opposite of capitalism... that is just government regulating the market. That law would do more harm than good.

Emergencies are the only time the government should step in to ensure the safety and well being of the people it serves. Such as face masks and cleaning supplies.

No it wouldn't, It would stop scalping, That's not going to harm anyone apart from scalpers.

 

[NeverBackDown]

No it wouldn't, It would stop scalping, That's not going to harm anyone apart from scalpers.

There's a lot more situations than scalping dude.

 

[Kaapstad]

Anyone silly enough to pay scalper rates for a non essential item like a GPU deserves to be out of pocket.

Don't pay scalpers rates, just relax sit back and wait a few weeks.

 

[Dicehunter]

There's a lot more situations than scalping dude.

Have a little leeway for increased import and shipping costs etc... that would be fine but there comes a point when it's just price gouging to increase profits on the part of a retailer, OCUK are quite famous for this practise and there's a reason a lot of their staff drive Ferraris and various exotic cars, They mark the price up on most things simply because they can and I really don't care if someone says "oh it's ok though it's capitalism" it's not ok it's just pure unfiltered greed.

 

[Deadtroopers]

6 SNP. A party of people more stupid than God and game developers.


File under bollocks.

 

[MadShadow]

6 SNP. A party of people more stupid than God and game developers.


File under bollocks.

You having a bit of a rough day today, mate?

 

[grec]

That is the opposite of capitalism... that is just government regulating the market. That law would do more harm than good.

Emergencies are the only time the government should step in to ensure the safety and well being of the people it serves. Such as face masks and cleaning supplies.

I think what you're describing is Laissez-faire Capitalism, assuming you're saying that "true capitalism" means as little regulation as possible. Sounds nice on paper, tried many times in the past, never worked for long in practice. Modern Western developed capitalism (US, UK, ect) is a fragile system that fundamentally relies on over a century of economic regulation to plug up all these holes, were we to try Laissez-faire Capitalism today it would quickly result in a very small number of people buying up and monopolising almost all key segments, kinda like capitalism today but more extreme, capitalism today at least has these band aid regulations to combat the inherent trend towards monopolies.

At the end of the day, it's all borne out of the fact that capitalism enables those who already posses wealth to grow their wealth at a rate exponentially quicker than those who currently have less, while regularly creating conditions that "kick down" those who have less wealth into positions of further poverty, it's a closed-loop system where runaway wealth growth of those who are already wealthy becomes a mathematical inevitability, which in turn means monopolism is a mathematical inevitability.