Re: Insane eBay

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

AMart79196@gmail.com wrote:
> Well, you all have good comments on this topic.
>
> I do see a negative side as this shuts out people who are looing to
> get into this hobby sadly because of the greedy shills that are being
> placed on these items up for auction.

I don't see much in the way of "greedy shills" for basic Apple //e
systems, which is what a newcomer needs to get started.  For every
overpriced system, there are several that cost less than shipping.

> Quite frankly, we here know how much it should cost and we know we
> cant control an auction.

A fair auction in an efficient market is precisely how one determines
the fair price of an object, so if we disagree, then we *don't* know
how much things should cost!

Of course, what makes a market efficient is accurate knowledge on the
part of all participants, so providing an easy way for participants to
inform themselves would help a lot.

But it will never eliminate the ridiculous overpricing that results from
two uninformed bidders, nor the ridiculous bargains that result from
uninformed buyers and sellers.  You just don't want their frequencies
to drive the "comparable sales" too far from the "mark".

Ironically, giving a lot of publicity to "off the mark" sales, as
in this thread, actually creates more opportunity for more whacky
sales.

-michael

NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

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