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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

> When the used laptop market turned into the used VCR market…

Meaning, it died? How did you handle the payments in those days?

Yea, the margins went from out-of-this-world to terrible as the price of new laptops came down. We used paypal and a few other (way worse) credit card processors. We also accepted checks and money orders by mail.

Edit: Another interesting tidbit. We were such a large paypal customer at the time that we were invited into their IPO. Bear Stearns (I think) called us 5 times trying to get us to buy in...but it was right after the .com crash and we chickened out. We would have doubled our money that day ;(

It's a real shame tbf, the drop in laptop prices means a lot more stuff is just thrown out and turned to e-waste instead of repaired / refurbished and resold, with fixing electronics having reached such a low point that it's become a somewhat rebellious volunteer job now.

I don't think it's a shame at all, I bought my first laptop in 2004 for iirc 2200 EUR, in my 2nd year of university. (OK, I wanted a nice laptop and not the cheapest piece of junk(.

It served me well for quite a few years, but I wasn't the starving student type, but actually working part-time as a programmer. I also wouldn't say this laptop was essential to finishing my studies, but (computer science) it was very, very handy.

Well, old laptops really suck, so it's not that bad.

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