on 11/11/05 1:22 PM, Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 06:00:31AM -0800, James Fraser wrote: >> What, exactly, constitutes "gouging?" > > When people talk about gouging they are typically refering to the > perception that someone is excessively enriching themselves at the > expense of others. In other words, greed. That's what I mean, though: what, exactly, constitutes "excessive?" And who has the right to determine this? If I buy an item, mark it up 100%, amd then sell it, am I being greedy? Likewise, if I buy a house for $250,000 and sell it for a half-million dollars, am I being greedy by asking that price? "Greed" (like "gouging") strikes me as being a very flexible word. It reminds me a great deal of the word "progress." What, exactly, is "progress?" As far as I can tell, "progress" can be made to mean anything you want it to. Erect a building? Progress! Tear a building down? Progess. >> The last time I looked, private property was something that could >> be sold at *any* price point; that's what makes it private property. > > Actually, that is not entirely true. Well, it is true in the sense that genuine private property means the owner of that property gets to decide what is to be done with it. That means I can sell it for what I think is "fair," give it away, destroy it, whatever I like; it's mine. The difficulty here is that, let's face it, governments (everywhere) do not have a good history of letting people do as they wish with the property that they own. >Most governments try to develop various types of price controls. Absolutely. And try as I might, I can't think of an example of an effective price control that's lasted very long. Price controls seem to invariably fail because, despite the fact that market forces cannot effectively be tightly controlled for long periods, that never seems to stop people from trying to do so. >Granted, none of those are relevant to the Apple II world. Thankfully, no. > There are three things that get on my nerves in the Apple II > community: > * People who are constantly trying to sell something. A community > has salesmen, but it is not about salesment. > * People who misrepresent the value of their product. That may > be in terms of its practicality, functionality, or rarity. > These are nothing more than snake-oil salesmen. > * People who insist that you must buy a product in order to maintain > the viability of the Apple II market. It's great to see people > making new stuff for the Apple II, but people should buy stuff > based upon its use rather than keeping somebody in business. I agree with you: these things can be annoying. At the same time, I'd like to think that we can agree that people should have the opportunity to make their product/service available to the Apple community at a price point that they (the owners of the product or service) deem appropriate. Of course, you and I reserve the right to point and laugh at said product/service or the price that is being asked for it. But I feel that that's _all_ we should be able to do. >> Why is asking $60 for a 20- (okay, 19) year-old keyboard not a "realistic" >> price? It would seem that if someone willingly pays that price...that >> that's as "realistic" as it gets. [shrugs] > > I think the issue was with the "RARE" bit of the advertisment. In > other words, the seller was trying to hoodwink potential bidders > into believing that it is a collectors item or may be difficult to > acquire in an attempt to boost the price. That is not the case > with the IIgs keyboard (though it may be the case with other > keyboards). But isn't the statement that an item is "rare" a matter of opinion? IIRC from list traffic, there were 100,000 IIGS units made. The last one rolled off the assembly line, what, 13 years ago? Let's say that 25% of these have hit the landfill since then. Does having 75,000 units of a given item in existence make it "common?" Perhaps it's simply a matter of how many people want to own one of those units. [shrugs] > Personally, I would never trust a salesman to represent > a product honestly. But that's me and there are a lot of naive > buyers out there. I reserve the right to inform the naive buyers > (or laugh at them) in an attempt to encourage them the think before > they buy. I agree that it's OK to offer advice to a buyer (or seller) about what they're buying/offering. But I feel that that's where it should end. As far as determining a price for something, I'd like to think that the buyer and seller should work that out between themselves. I guess I just get nervous when I hear people use words like "gouging" simply because they are so subjective. Your "gouging" is my "fair profit." >From what I've seen so far, though, the Apple II community has been fairly self-regulating. By that I mean that while fast-buck artists exist (and always will) they don't seem to last long. Of course, your "fast-buck artist" is my... [breaks up laughing]. Uh, nevermind. 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