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Comment by goblin89 | Hacker News Reader

If everyone buys only what they need (e.g., if it’s a small personal sanitizer bottle, keep 1 in use and 1 in inventory), demand could be spread out and crowds avoided.

The problem appears to combine habitual shopping for long term (not many have a 24/7 convenience store within 3 minutes of walking), panicked distrust in infrastructure reliability, and good old tragedy of the commons.

Some countries fare better on first two, but still have the last one (e.g., Hong Kong).

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The thing is, normally most people done have ANY hand sanitizer, let alone two, as you describe.... so when suddenly everyone wants to buy them, there isn't enough for everyone to have even two. That doesn't make the people buying them selfish.

But that’s not what they do, try to buy two or whatever reasonable number. A few people literally fill a shopping cart with toilet paper, water bottles, and hand sanitizer, and it’s gone. The problem is one of capacity to match demand within such short time frames.

I went to Costco and saw people buying up to the limit on random stuff, and they end up with 6 months of toilet paper, 1 year worth of pasta, etc. I wanted one box of diapers (one lasts over a month), and there were only 4-5 boxes left when there's normally 20+, even when there's a good sale. I have never seen them be out of baby wipes, but they were out when I went (which is a shame because we just ran out). In fact, they had to shut down a local Costco because people are fighting over toilet paper.

COVID-19 isn't going to be some world ending thing, it's just going to put some supply pressure in the short term until production and distribution can ramp back up, but people are treating it like it will be. It's really frustrating.

The base problem is that it's Prisoner's Dilemma.

If nobody hoards, everyone is fine.

If a small number of people hoard, there are stock-outs, and everyone else has no access to the thing.

Ergo, the strictly dominant individual move is to hoard ASAP. As it provides coverage against all scenarios.

Limiting quantities is the obvious equitable response to this, so it's been good seeing retailers step up and do so.

I believe the implicit assumption here is distrust in reliability of supply, other people’s behavior and infrastructure in general. Some cultures are more resistant to this kind of stuff.

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