I really agree with @pkmnflyingmaster in his last post, referencing ticket scalping was pretty spot on too.
Its hard to be objective in ethics when criticising someone for profiteering in a system (capitalism) specifically designed for generating capital, the ethical dilemma stems from the system itself and not the individuals who operate within it.
Exploiting a gap in the market where something is undervalued (you just have to look at the increases in price of Trophy cards for example to interpret this) is pretty reasonable, this happens in every institute, like early Microsoft or Apple stock for instance, someone saw the opportunity for profit and ran with it when others slept on it.
Also, @smpratte is right about investors in Pokemon, an outright buyout in Pokemon would be incredibly time consuming, for someone with no vetted interest in the hobby it just isnât worthwhile, time is money and that time could be much better spent investing in the housing market or a business.
I do find it very interesting how often people discuss the hypothetical future value of modern product. The gap in the market, the availability of product has been filled considerably, therefore its significantly less likely to reach the price point of comparatively rare vintage product, because of supply and demand, its just interesting, seems like any alleged blame could be divvied up between so many different people.
from what I heard, Rocketâs Admin was hoarded like this about a year or more ago, which coincided with the price spiking temporarily to something like $70
Theres no right or wrong answer. If youâre a collector and want a certain card and someoneâs buying them all out to squeeze a profit/manipulate the market; it can be a bummer. Itâs very much like scalping. If you love the Knicks and want to see them play at Madison Square Garden and Ticketmaster has two shell orgâs buying all the cheap shit out and selling it for 3 times the price, some of those Knicks fans will just have to settle for watching the game from a bar across the street or seeing the Knicks play an away game at a diff stadium. Things are accepted until they get abused so much that the government or organization has to step in to regulate distribution. For Pokemon, I just donât see them giving a shit at the moment and maybe not for a long while to come.
The difference with scalping is you are selling access to an event. With trading cards there is no purpose besides being pieces of art we enjoy.
I do think ticket scalping has more issues, but it still is a non-essential. It is impossible to stop it from happening, as popular events will always have more people interested than can actually attend. Similar to rare collectibles, there will never be enough copies for everyone.
I heard of someone doing a mass buyout (the usual troll/tcgplayer/ebay thing), but it could have just been people griping over the price and unfairly accusing the company; I do forget the companyâs name.
My only experience with trying to participate in buying something out was I bought all of the copies of an MTG reserved list card (Soldevi Excavations) on Troll. It absolutely worked out, with price having more than tripled since. So I assume if someone can think of a correlating kind of opportunity in Pokemon it would absolutely work out, but it would need to be someone brighter than me; I just did the MTG thing since someone else said to!