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Comment by happytiger | Hacker News Reader

If you can’t sell it you don’t own it.

The mentality that creates clauses like this in the first place is a warning first to all of us, and a concern for discussion second.

There seems to be a major push to own products after they are sold. We have a model for that: it’s leasing or renting.

I think it’s profoundly important we as a society punish companies who try to blur that line by refusing to buy their products for risk that everything in life become a rental and we all end up living very convenient lives working for the company stores.

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Cue Tennessee Ernie Ford

https://youtu.be/BSvORvIjZiU?feature=shared

Working at Amazon almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

I mean this is common for pre-sale real estate developments (at least where I live, Vancouver, back when there was a ton of demand), how is this different?

In my mind presale is investors seeking potential appreciation by buying a product before it’s finished being manufactured.

So it’s a reward for speculation on a pre-order and that’s the parallel you are referring to, correct?

In this case the company seeks to restrict that speculation not to improve the opportunity for early investors who took the risk of preordering a product or a home but simply to restrict the availability of aftermarket product for their market benefit.

Read what was in the actual contract:

> Cybertruck Only: You understand and acknowledge that the Cybertruck will first be released in limited quantity. You agree that you will not sell or otherwise attempt to sell the Vehicle within the first year following your Vehicle's delivery date. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if you must sell the Vehicle within the first year following its delivery date for any unforeseen reason, and Tesla agrees that your reason warrants an exception to its no reseller policy, you agree to notify Tesla in writing and give Tesla reasonable time to purchase the Vehicle from you at its sole discretion and at the purchase price listed on your Final Price Sheet less $0.25/mile driven, reasonable wear and tear, and the cost to repair the Vehicle to Tesla's Used Vehicle Cosmetic and Mechanical Standards. If Tesla declines to purchase your Vehicle, you may then resell your Vehicle to a third party only after receiving written consent from Tesla. You agree that in the event you breach this provision, or Tesla has reasonable belief that you are about to breach this provision, Tesla may seek injunctive relief to prevent the transfer of title of the Vehicle or demand liquidated damages from you in the amount of $50,000 or the value received as consideration for the sale or transfer, whichever is greater. Tesla may also refuse to sell you any future vehicles.

Who wins? Tesla. They are able to capture the demand and prevent speculators (essential demand scalpers) from softening their market. You don’t own it you own the rights to use it less repayment terms. This is what they removed. I think it’s egregious market manipulation.

You’re saying Tesla wins by making less money? How does that work? Don’t their actual customers win?

Tesla wins by capturing all the demand of early customers exclusively.

Customers “winning” is short term thinking because the precedent set is that the product supply is controlled after they sell it, not before. Presale is not post sale control.

The best we can hope for is that the company doesn’t abuse the situation, but the point is when you sell something and someone has paid you in full you shouldn’t be able to dictate whether someone can exercise ownership rights on what they paid for fair-and-square.

There is a LOT of movement towards this kind of thinking because it creates protections for company profits and allows companies to manipulate the sale and repair ecosystems for their own benefit. That’s… not good.

And then tendency is to look for rent in that controlling contract, by extracting recurring payments in subscription form as well. So now the car company controls the price of what it sells, who can buy and sell it, what you can do with the product you paid for and even what features you paid for can transfer to third parties when you sell it. That’s a broad overreach and approaches a situation where you are licensing the car rather than purchasing it and in my opinion should be deeply resisted.

Tesla captures that anyway unless you are suggesting a huge amount of purchaser remorse instead of people trying to sell a waiting list position at a profit..

I don't like Tesla but it is ridiculous to call a 1 year anti-scalping rule a profit scheme, at the end of the year, they would even have a slump based on remorse buyers liquidating which would hurt them more as they might actually have capacity then.

Manufacturers like Tesla create a shortage and sell to it. They want total control.

It’s not ridiculous at all. It’s standard business practice these days to literally create artificial exclusivity and capture as many dollars as possible from early customers.

We may just not see eye-to-eye but that’s ok. We can disagree and still be friends.

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