It seems as if the following might be true. (I have no idea whether it is, but the key point is one you mentioned in the OP.) If it is, then the scalpers are hurting ordinary people’s ability to acquire PS5s at non-scalper prices, even if they are prepared to spend a lot of time.
Every time some consoles become available, they will go to the people who get there first.
Ordinary people don’t have very effective ways of getting there first.
Scalpers, because they are buying many PS5s per drop, can afford to take measures that let them almost always get there first. (Any specific scalper won’t necessarily win in a particular case, but the person who wins will almost always be a scalper.)
Therefore, as long as there are scalpers around doing their thing, ordinary people don’t have the option of trading time against money and getting PS5s in stock drops, because all the PS5s in those drops actually go to scalpers. Or, at least, almost all, so that the time-cost of trying to get a PS5 that way is much larger than you would expect.
Probably some ordinary people could implement the same sorts of bot that the scalpers use, but (1) most people don’t have the necessary skills and (2) even for those who do, that again is a large investment of time given that all they want is one PS5.
I admit I’m pretty unsure how my beliefs change as the % of PS5s grabbed by scalpers changes.
Like, the more PS5s scalpers get, the higher the time cost for anyone trying to buy at RRP in the short term, but the faster the scalpers will run through the population of people willing to pay high markups?
This is where I realise that I don’t know how scalpers actually react to that situation – maybe for some reason they just drip-feed their PS5 hauls? Maybe (probably) they’re more patient than most of the people trying to win drops, so they sell off their PS5s more slowly (and so remove competitors from the pool at a lower rate than otherwise would be the case)?
I think there’s a pretty strong chance I’m just misunderstanding something here.
The drip feed idea sounds really unlikely. The scalper is not a monopolist over the sales of PS5s, so he is accepting the market price, and can’t raise it by unilaterally not offering supply. For that to happen the scalpers would need to coordinate.
It seems as if the following might be true. (I have no idea whether it is, but the key point is one you mentioned in the OP.) If it is, then the scalpers are hurting ordinary people’s ability to acquire PS5s at non-scalper prices, even if they are prepared to spend a lot of time.
Every time some consoles become available, they will go to the people who get there first.
Ordinary people don’t have very effective ways of getting there first.
Scalpers, because they are buying many PS5s per drop, can afford to take measures that let them almost always get there first. (Any specific scalper won’t necessarily win in a particular case, but the person who wins will almost always be a scalper.)
Therefore, as long as there are scalpers around doing their thing, ordinary people don’t have the option of trading time against money and getting PS5s in stock drops, because all the PS5s in those drops actually go to scalpers. Or, at least, almost all, so that the time-cost of trying to get a PS5 that way is much larger than you would expect.
Probably some ordinary people could implement the same sorts of bot that the scalpers use, but (1) most people don’t have the necessary skills and (2) even for those who do, that again is a large investment of time given that all they want is one PS5.
I admit I’m pretty unsure how my beliefs change as the % of PS5s grabbed by scalpers changes.
Like, the more PS5s scalpers get, the higher the time cost for anyone trying to buy at RRP in the short term, but the faster the scalpers will run through the population of people willing to pay high markups?
This is where I realise that I don’t know how scalpers actually react to that situation – maybe for some reason they just drip-feed their PS5 hauls? Maybe (probably) they’re more patient than most of the people trying to win drops, so they sell off their PS5s more slowly (and so remove competitors from the pool at a lower rate than otherwise would be the case)?
I think there’s a pretty strong chance I’m just misunderstanding something here.
The drip feed idea sounds really unlikely. The scalper is not a monopolist over the sales of PS5s, so he is accepting the market price, and can’t raise it by unilaterally not offering supply. For that to happen the scalpers would need to coordinate.