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Comment by Jeremy1026 | Hacker News Reader

> It's just temporarily prohibited for the duration of an emergency for the products related to that emergency.

How is a Nintendo Switch related to the COVID-19 emergency? If it counts because "people are bored" then what wouldn't fall under related to COVID-19?

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I am not really sure how I feel about this. Yes, charging $1000 for a Nintendo Switch is insane, but who will buy it? I guess the same process goes for ticket scalpers too who resell tickets on insane markups trying to snag people desperate enough to get it. I think as long as it doesn't affect cleaning supplies and similar items then I am okay with it, despite it being extremely slimy.

What about real-estate? Theoretically someone could buy up every property in an area and then price gouge anyone who wants to live there. They "could" just live somewhere else that is cheaper.

I guess that just adds more to the "I don't know how I feel." part. If the demand is there, then they will sell. Otherwise, this person would own a bunch of empty property. But is there something already stopping that? Is there anything stopping Jeff Bezos from just buying up a small community and disallowing anybody to live there without paying a ton extra? I am very unfamiliar with real estate so this is a genuine question.

If I got wind that Bezos was determined to buy up every property in my neighborhood, I'd quadruple my price. Heck, 10x! Bezos would pay plenty. I'd buy my neighbor's house for 2x and jack that up 10x for the sale to desperate Bezos.

This is why such attempts to corner the market fail. See Hunt Brothers.

Similarly, Disney bought the land in Florida for WDW quietly, using a bunch of shell companies, to avoid exactly this situation.

That is much more difficult. Land is not owned by a single entity that's willing to give it up at the right price

Isn't that what people have already collectively done in cities? It takes $2k/mo to live in Seattle. The land I live on is valued at 5x what the house is worth and I'm not allowed to build an apartment on it.

> collectively done

I.e. the market, not a monopoly.

That's what we've outlawed -- we've outlawed all gas stations and supermarkets from raising prices regardless of monopoly. They have diverse ownership.

Tripling prices of TP so you don't hoard during a shortage seems less detrimental to society than locking generations of working class people from being able to ever join highly-productive areas.

I guess with a land value tax you can be sure the land is being used economically efficiently. As it is, the land is being used inefficiently. So I suppose it’s a market, just not an efficient one.

"Gouging" in this context means raising a price to take advantage of a temporary emergency or people in a desperate situation. I can't imagine how buying a house in a particular neighborhood would be an emergency. If people are willing to pay massive amounts of money for property in a given area then that is the market value for that area whether there is a single owner or multiple.

some of this is money laundering

I had to buy a monitor and webcam during covid. I had camelcamelcamel price watching them for months waiting for sales.

I have my alerts at $99 for the webcam and $750 for the monitor. Their typical prices are $130 and $1150.

The prices of those right now are $199 and $1999 respectively if they're in stock anywhere. People are hoarding these and selling them on Ebay now for 50% markups.

I've even had to take to Ebay to buy Xbox controllers from Best Buy themselves.

There is also just a lot more people who need those things for working from home, which would explain why their are shortages. It isn't just hoarders, there is an actual increase in demand.

Toilet paper shortages are caused by hoarders, since demand hasn't actually increased.

Demand for consumer TP probably would have increased given many people are no longer at the office

In case of TP, I'd lean strongly towards the problem being caused by the supply chain being bifurcated between consumer and business markets. From what I anecdotally hear, there's plenty of TP available for cheap in the US, just all of it is in absurdly-sized rolls you would struggle to fit in your bathroom.

I can compare that to Poland, where we didn't really have much of a TP shortage. Here, from my observation, most businesses buy the same type/size of TP as regular consumers do, so I suspect our market isn't as strongly bifurcated, and so there was no problem shifting supply from businesses to the stores.

I’m thinking about selling my well used Nintendo Switch on Craigslist because the prices are so high (like $450 in my city) I don’t really play much anymore and maybe someone will like it. If I can’t charge a higher price I’ll just hold onto it because I don’t really need the money. Am I being slimy by making a Switch that otherwise wouldn’t be available up for sale for someone who really wants it? It doesn’t feel that way.

You dirty, evil price gouger! Crawl back into your cave.

I don’t see anything wrong with someone selling theirs that they have no intention of using again. I have a problem with people who clear out the shelves of Switches with the express intent of reselling them at a higher price. Everyone says “the supply chain will ramp up” is ignoring that supply chain has been backed up for almost two months.

This doesn’t apply just to the Switch, but to everything.

To me entertainment feels like a basic human need (though a lot further down the hierarchy), but that doesn't mean we have the right to an individual form or brand of entertainment. There are a lot of alternatives so I don't think there's a real issue here.

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