Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

I try to keep abreast of SSD prices, as I've been looking to swap out the spinning rust on my ESXi server with SSDs, but the prices are still a bit too high for my taste, and that hasn't changed much over the past few years.

Which is why I was really surprised to see this both on Vice and ArsTechnica[0].

A quick web search for "4TB external SSD" shows prices in the USD$400-600 range. So 30TB for ~USD$40 seems too good to be true. Actually, it strains credulity well past the breaking point.

And as the old saw goes, "if it seems to good to be true, it probably is."

Then again, I guess a lot of folks haven't been paying attention (as I have) to storage prices. But even so, 16TB spinning rust drives are an order of magnitude more expensive than the price quoted by Walmart for this "30TB SSD".

It just goes to show that Joe Bessemer (and/or someone else) was right[1].

[0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/walmart-lists-a-30tb...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_mi...

I think that "too good to be true" is an intentional strategy in these kinds of listings. This way, the only people who buy it are those who don't know better, and probably won't realize they were scammed. They'll just buy it because they know 30 > 1 or 2, so it must be better.

If you sell a scam device that seems like plausibly real deal, you might have a bunch of buyers who actually know what they're doing, intend to use the space, and will subsequently complain and return the devices.

>I think that "too good to be true" is an intentional strategy in these kinds of listings. This way, the only people who buy it are those who don't know better, and probably won't realize they were scammed. They'll just buy it because they know 30 > 1 or 2, so it must be better.

That's quite possibly true]0]. Presumably Joe Bessemer would agree.

[0] But not too good to be!

Edit: Added snark as footnote.

No, you see 30TB is just the company name, not the actual size /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haddocks'_Eyes

Please enjoy an early example of mastery of this technique

Yet despite the scam being obvious, Walmart still listed it.

>Yet despite the scam being obvious, Walmart still listed it.

And so they did.

How does that old saw go? "It is useless to argue with a man whose opinion is based upon a personal or pecuniary interest;"[0], and/or something similar.

[0] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary/

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