What are the ethics on this?

[mbd39 | 2,017]

Where did he originally get the money to buy all the stuff that he's reselling? I assume that he has rich parents.

 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

3 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

Props to the kid for the head start in life. I still personally wouldn't sell one of my teenage years for $100k though. 16 is a cool time to be alive and with friends that aren't your employees.

If that year was 2020 you might.   

And I still think the lead got buried a bit here with the click-baity article headline.   This guy made about a 6 percent profit at the end of the day.   Six.  Percent.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, Webhead123 said:

I'm not an expert on ethics and I'm sure matters like this get really messy when we start exploring the philosophy and psychology of examples like this. I'd actually be curious to find some reading on this idea from someone who does have the benefit of that background. All I will say is that if profiteering is a manifestation of greed and if greed is considered an unethical frame of being, then the act of profiteering itself stands on ethically dubious grounds.

Again, this is not my specialty, so I entirely invite my position being debunked with sufficient evidence to the contrary.

Well, I guess part of my view on this is that the kid was connecting products with people that were willing to pay "market price", versus the products just going on a first-come-first-served basis.

But to your point - all capitalism is a manifestation of greed. It's the nature of the system.

 

That said -- if the numbers are to be believed, the kid's profit margin was quite low, so him earning $100k for his effort in the marketplace isn't particularly "greedy".

Edited June 10, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[guitarzombie | 923]

1 hour ago, mbd39 said:

Where did he originally get the money to buy all the stuff that he's reselling? I assume that he has rich parents.

 

Reminds me of something getting their parents to drop a grand on a Stadium Events when they were only 12 years old.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

3 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

Reminds me of something getting their parents to drop a grand on a Stadium Events when they were only 12 years old.

Did someone on here or NA do that?

[MrWunderful | 2,926]

If they did it was a hell of an investment, I would listen to the kid too

Edited June 11, 2021 by MrWunderful

[guitarzombie | 923]

2 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Did someone on here or NA do that?

 

2 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

If they did it was a hell of an investment, I would listen to the kid too

It was a long time ago when it was still worth a grand.  Their initials are the same as the first game Mario appeared in.

[MrWunderful | 2,926]

That’s who I assumed you were talking about

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

This just in... "Young adult makes comfortable living from working 40hrs a week at non-minimum wage job after likely receiving interest free loan from relatives for start-up". Hmmm doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

 

Good on this person but I don't really like the glorification of these scenarios, especially when they're embellished through the media like the person's a millionaire or something. It's kinda sad that it's so shocking that someone, 16 or not, made 100K earnings after working 40 hrs a week. 

 

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

Scalping is absolutely a disgusting practice...buuuuut This actually raises a different question.

At what point is it not “scalping” Anymore?

If you’re putting in 40 hours a week, opening a company, paying employees, marketing, locating inventory, doing packing and logistics, and stocking shelves in a warehouse then you’re just running a model business at that point.

Clearly there’s a line to be crossed, but where is it, and how fuzzy is it?

Is it MSRP? Because if so, then selling below MSRP is unethical since you’re screwing your local competitors over.

Is it 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%+ over buy price? Then what about low cost, high profit per unit bulk items?

[O.G. CIB | 415]

I guess I don’t get the mindset on here…. There a couple guys that post in this thread I’ve seen in the past brag about their score then turn around and sell games way over “market price” then you sit here and complain about scalping????? Or it’s ok for a game store to pay you .50 on a dollar and turn around and sell the game 5 mins later for a profit. All the same in my eyes…..Business is Business. If you don’t want to buy it don’t. Much respect to the 16 year old clocking 110k but he needs some help with those margins because that wouldn’t be sustainable. 
 

Much respect to @DoctorEncore.   He has sold me items at the cost he paid for it and if I ever had a thing he needs he would get it at cost or free. There are times I had to pay the scalper (especially recently when I wanted to wrap up a few things) and there are times I am the scalper….. all apart of being a collector aka A Video Game Hustler