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I don't know many people here who believe Zerodium's price list, and while I can't speak to Zerodium's payment terms, the norm appears to be tranched payments, apparently ofter over a year; selling the same bug on the grey market for "more" money (whatever it is brokers actually pay) is a gamble that the bug you've sold isn't going to die.

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With those terms, they can buy a bug, report it to Apple, collect the $1m, and be off the hook to pay out the remaining payments. It seems to me this makes it much riskier to go to the black market than people here realize.

Yes, because that is exactly the sort of behavior that a business would engage in. Screwing over their suppliers and demonstrating that they offer no value whatsoever.

How would that make any sense? It is ludicrous.

Would be a nice pivot for patent troll companies. In a world where profit is king the question is not why, but when?

A nice pivot for patent companies would be somehow generating the connections and reputation to participate as brokers in this super-insular and highly technical marketplace, and then burn all that work down to fuck over an individual researcher for pocket change?

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