The entire idea of influencers is gross. We live in a stupid world, at a stupid time. I sleep better at night not worrying too much about it, and try to spend my waking hours in the places that seem most hostile to that stupidity.
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Honestly the thought of being āinfluencedā by an āinfluencerā is crazy to me. People donāt like to think though and celebrity worship is so real at least in the usa.
But please people recognize that 99% of your whatnot hype beasts are the same scalpers and resellers you were hating on in 2020. Now they get to be called influencers and the head of their own personal community of people who like them so much they get to overcharge for crap?
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Crack dealers are also filling a niche. Just saying I donāt consider that the only requirement for āserving a real purposeā
Was this an aggressive metaphor? Yes. Is Whatnot deserving of such harsh criticism? Also yes
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Totally unrelated but ive been watching Financial Audit by Caleb Hammer and hes interviewed a large pool of debt laden risk takers who would throw all common sense out the window to become a minimum payment making black label owner
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Just because we donāt agree with a service that exists doesnāt mean that it isnāt serving a real purpose/desire of the community. There are a lot of āgroupthinkā and āecho chamberā issues in e4 because so many of us think alike and value things similarly. Spend some time outside of e4 and youāll see that tons of collectors love those platforms that we do not care for on here. 
There are a lot of āgroupthinkā and āecho chamberā issues in e4 because so many of us think alike and value things similarly.
And I say this lovingly as someone who values e4 quite a lot. Itās healthy to recognize that how we think on here is often much different from everywhere else.
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Agreed 100%. My brother in law loves whatnot for some reason - just a regular 35 year old dude that enjoys it on there for one reason or another.
I asked him flat out ādoes the amount you spend on raffles and participation exceed or equate to the products you get?ā to which he willingly accepted āoh absolutely notā. He is perfectly fine with that for whatever reason, and its opened my eyes as to how narrowly focused (for good reason) e4 is compared to alot of other spaces online
A lot of the problems with whatnot come from itās lack of regulation. If a crypto service has no regulation you can bet your arse itāll fill a niche and get used quite a bit. Now should that be celebrated as a triumph of capitalism? Idk Iād probably lean towards no and some regulation is needed in my opinion. And when that regulation is on whatnot Iāll stop complaining about whatnot
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I use ublock so i dont get ads ever. Saves me from buying youtube
I respect the people who do whatnot honestly and provide a nice entertaining way to spend your evening while also being able to add to your collection. Back in 2015-2019 I would buy a ton of stuff from virbank live auctions, and greatly appreciated the people who spent the time to run them and look back on those times as fond memories.
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As in every market, trends are cyclical.
As a hobby advances in its way from being a speculative hobby, to a established, to finally a mature one (if it reaches there), ātastesā of collectors mutate and continue to change.
Now there is more demand in modern, but in 3 years this could change again.
We also see FOMO for Japanese promos, or interest could completely change for a while to āonly sealedā.
Things like the 151 set could bring attention to the EX era for a whileā¦
We will never know where the main interest for the bast majority of collectors will be, the only certainty is that there will be constant change.
What we should have clear is that first sets and eras of hobbies, where collectibles grow organically, are what really retain value in the long run.
At the end, modern will be replaced for other modern, and then another oneā¦ and so on. Only certain cards will survive as chasabe for collectors as years pass and a huge amount of sets continue to appear, as collectors money has a capā¦
Either way, Pokemon is STRONG and Iām so happy to see that! 
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So what would be the Carvana equivalent in Pokemon?
You can get some PSA 8 Shadowless Holos steals for around $60 to $80 with the right auction snipes. Who cares if they ever go up in value, at that price I am buying for sure.
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For me this is the main thing not to lose sight of amongst all the noise.
WhatNot and YouTube hype channels arenāt my thing, but you could make an argument to say they serve a purpose in the hobby. Perpetuity of wider interest if nothing else. To be able to enjoy collecting and actually use the hobby itself to pay for our collections is quite the luxury, perhaps something we (myself included) take for granted sometimes.
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Carvana has been short-squeezed quite a lot recently, indicating that investors are not too sure about the value of the company. In Pokemon, we do not have the option to short cards; if there was such an option, I would short many moderns for sure.
Just one more thing: Most dynamic price movements (across investment objects) are based on narratives. As of now, the narrative is that alt arts have supercool art, are super hard to pull and will hence be always desirable. Add the FOMO that many correctly mentioned here and you can the current narrative. Awesome book is by Shiller (Narrative Economics); explains also Pokemon since 2020 very well.
Wow, I like whatnot. Just had to get over the denial of vintage being the only Pokemon cards to collect. There are huge deals on whatnot from smaller sellers. You all are watching the mega streamers, like watching J-lo commercials with Fiat. The social media platforms are just like TV commercial celebrity endorsements. Just get over the denial, ultra modern some how is more collectible than vintage. This is coming from a vintage pre 2000 collector.
If you dont like anything, why worry about it? Just have fun collecting
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