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Comment by enriquto | Hacker News Reader

as a die-hard lego fan I am quite worried about this. Will an alternative marketplace develop?

yeah, when I read this headline, my first reaction was "uh-oh" -- for years, Bricklink has been the only reasonable way to get specific [i.e., not subject to pick-a-brick selection] bulk parts / bricks -- the stuff my kid and I build wouldn't be possible without Bricklink -- I sure hope they don't functionally torpedo it, or just kill it outright

I don't think so, in the end BrickLink is more like ebay then amazone, i.e. a platform which helps you by from other shops. And it also has the custom builds program.

If they crack down on reselling parts someone will just create a new platform doing that. What might be lost is some of the custom builds stuff and "automatically find parts" functionality. At last for some time.

Through they might put up a bit more quality assurance, i.e. follow complains about non-official LEGO parts being sold and similar. It also prevents the platforms from starting to sell non-Lego blocks and figures.

Through we probably can be sure that militaria LEGO builds are not unlikely to disappear.

If I had to guess, this is related to Brickset working with LEGO to sell those custom sets recently. They're probably going to sell extra stuff occasionally through it and maybe some exclusive parts etc. Leaving the reselling alone. Just a thought.

I'd be a bit concerned too. I have got the distinct feeling that over the last ten years or so Lego has been working harder to control both it's image and how the fan community uses its products. Stuff like suing YouTubers for a variety of reasons and being ever stricter about how and when you can use the Lego name.

My concern would be that Lego will make BrickLink the "approved" community and resale site and make it harder for alternatives to exist.

I hope I'm wrong, but I cant help but think that because the resale/collector value of Lego increases it would make sense for Lego to try and control that market.

I was wondering what would be the general opinion of the effect this will have on BrickLink going forward. I, too, am concerned about how this will affect BrickLink's autonomy to operate as it has for years.

Bricklink will be hard to beat for an alternative marketplace, it's been tried a couple of times by people not happy with the way Bricklink was run but just like Ebay it's a two sided marketplace and those have very strong network effects that once a party is established make it very hard to enter that market.

There already is https://brickowl.com

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