It feels overwhelming that there are so many arbitrary, seemingly pedestrian articles of this world being boosted in value to such stratospheric heights. Society's measures just keep seeming so out of balance, so wildly over-inflated, on so many accounts, & it just seems like, with valuations, there's almost never any means for these belief structures to be countered. The structures of faith supporting these valuations have no maintenance costs, & any element of scarcity fuels a FOMO that further stratifies. Everything feels unmoored, decoupled, floating off the planet. I hate that I yearn for reckoning, on so many areas, but economically, faith only ever accrues, builds, escalates.
Read an interesting theory that this "missing inflation" from all the money printing is already here - it just affects things that people with money buy, so stocks/real estate/collectibles/cryptocurrency basically. Reason being all the printed money went straight to the rich. The CPI is untouched.
I feel this in my bones. Some part of this is not new - from the tulip mania to beanie babies - but there definitely feels like more abstraction creeps in every year.
I like concrete things. Rugged tools, reliable cars, but these are boring. You can't build a bubble on boring, moored ideas, you need hype.
Touché! Although if you are referring to the the great housing bubble, I think a big contributing factor was financial instruments and practices which enabled more "bubbly" behavior. Giving people access to mortgages that historically would likely not have been given, and in hindsight absolutely should not have been given, injected a ton of cheap and easy money into the system. The more degrees of indirection, the more unhinged it can become.
Concrete to abstract:
- make a house yourself
- buy a house with cash
- buy a house with a mortgage with a large down payment (low risk, easy to back)
- buy a house with good credit and less down payment but PPI (riskier, the bank needs to hedge more)
- no down payment, less than stellar credit, more house than you need, etc.
The latter is super high risk and normally would not be underwritten. But someone figured out you could bundle the risk in order to distribute that risk, surely only a collapse of the whole housing market could make them massively default! Oops.
I feel like this phenomena really can only happen in 'first-world' countries like America -- in fact, maybe it's almost a uniquely American thing driven by our culture of optimism... combined with the need to look trendy, which doesn't really have any geographical boundaries.
You said a lot of words that can simply be countered by a 22yo saying "yolo" and they aren't exactly wrong either. As an individual, you do only live once. How do you want to spend that time? Being upset at the way things are, or enjoying it to the extent that you can? I'm not advocating for this thinking, just saying it is valid point of view. It is actually helpful to cut off you criticism of things at a certain point and focus on a realistic balance of concerns, cause, you know, yolo ;)
I got a lot of advice on how I should opt not to care yesterday too on HN. I'm tired of being berated for being a human, with senses, who perceives things, and tries to discern order. That I care is not a fault.
But yes, sure. I do try to allow others, to permit the flourishing, wild world around me. I don't take umbrage with this unreason. But it does feel like so many cycles have such poor self-correction, and that does cause a generalized concern.
Hm. I had to stop and think at the part: "When the shoes went on sale an hour later, Hebert’s team swarmed the Yeezy Supply website ... each prepped with Hebert’s credit card information and capable of gaming a system meant to limit purchases to one pair per customer.
Are the sellers not able to limit based on CC number? Perhaps not. I know most websites don't actually have any visibility into the payment info that is usually handled by a third party payment processor integration.
Seriously tho, something must be possible. A payment processor feature that has allotment restrictions based on client+card or delivery address must be possible. Payment processors should be jumping at the opportunity to charge extra for that type of protection for clients that are selling limited high-demand products.
Obv using more cards is a workaround, but it doesn't sound like the hoarder even had to go that far.
I've thought about this problem as a start up idea
The thing is, it's trivial to come up with fake card details. Stupidly trivial.
And the more intensive your verification, the lower your conversion rate from click to sale...
So the idea would have to be something like validating valid ID before the sale happens, since validating a real form of identification can take days in some cases.
Maybe you could become a household name in anti-scalping and get people to sign up before they ever buy something from a specific retailer, then provide an API retailers can use to verify a "real person" was registered on your site with a given set of info.
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The problem is convincing a retailer to let you get hooks in their checkout system for this. At the end of the day demand is so high for these things even taking dissatisfaction into account it really isn't costing the retailer anything at all...
If anything it's just driving demand even higher as it attracts speculators who otherwise wouldn't be interested...
> At the end of the day demand is so high for these things even taking dissatisfaction into account it really isn't costing the retailer anything at all...
Well, the retailer only cares enough to look like they care enough so that they don't garner negative press.
The retailer really only cares that they sell. Yes, the retailer would like to capture some of that scalper premium but doing so without also alienating the customer base is difficult. (see: Ticketmaster--whose almost sole purpose is to serve as a blame repository for egregious ticket prices)
In this case if they create enough supply to match demand the price will fall as they are no longer "limited supply". They would far rather leave money on the table than push it too far and lose the value proposition entirely
In the space of limited special edition stuff, a retailer is not going to last long with that mindset. If a brand gets a reputation that they have lenient buying restrictions, and all their stuff ends up at resellers instead of true enthusiasts, that brand will swiftly become irrelvant.
This article may cause waves in niche for Jordans and Yeezys, and suddenly those products are no longer quite as cool or worth quite as much, simply because now you know it was just some dude buying up stock... it really kind of takes away part of the fun ownership of the stuff in way.
Imagine going to buy a pair of sneakers and the site asks for a scan of your federal ID. Do you even know if you have one? Where is it? Do you trust the site? It could take days to verify... maybe the scan was blurry and needs to be redone...
No retailer would add something like this to their checkout flow, it's a very extreme solution
Not extreme at all. You seem very out of touch with the reality of the enthusiast markets for such things.
People line up for days for stuff like this. If all you had to do was provide ID online and wait 3 days at home... no problem at all.
I'm not out of touch with anything. I have a closet full of every almost every Yeezy 350 colorway ever released.
Just because some people will do something doesn't mean everyone will. Many people would protest having to provide government ID to buy sneakers.
Even if it scares off 1 person why does a retailer want to do that, pay the money it costs. and deal with the optics of being the ones asking for federal ID to buy shoes when they can literally just not instead.
Like I said above, demand is so far above supply it doesn't matter if 100% of sales go to scalpers anymore, they'll still sell out, and the aftermarket will still eat it up, no matter how bad they feel about not being able to get drops directly.
no, but for seller reputation sake, WHO gets the sales matters a LOT.
A limited brand that everyones knows 90% of stock is going to a reseller marking it up is going to quickly be done.
Yea, if these sellers actually cared about allotment restrictions, they would invented some pre-registration account system that verified actual identification.
> the more intensive your verification, the lower your conversion rate
^ True, but selling through stock does not seem to be the issue for this segment of sellers.
To some degree the concert ticket sellers have already (finally) solved this, haven't they?
I like your idea tho, that type of vetting costs money because it probably involves humans do some amount of work.
I have never investigated what is available, but the fact that I would even have to investigate what is available tells me there isn't already some obvious choice out there.
Look, scalpers are just underwriters for an efficient secondary market. The negative connotation is all pretend.
I mean its real to people that believe they can get those shoes for totally not flipping them and wearing them. But there is a reason there is no serious effort to stop them by the merchants.
It's not pretend, they're rentiers offering no value. If instead of spending $200 on a scalped ticket and attending 1 concert, a consumer might spend $200 on four legitimately purchased ones and attend 4. In fact, it doesn't matter if they spend $100 and see 2 instead, you can quite clearly see it means that there's less money to go to the actual artists, the producers of actual value.
It's a net loss for everyone involved in the production of actual value.
So economically it might be neutral, but in terms of social value it's a massive loss.
if scalpers are consistently making money, it implies that the original seller has mispriced their product. if the venue has room for n people and tickets are sold for $50, but there are n people willing to pay $100 to attend, it's the artist's/label's fault for pricing the tickets too low. either way, the scalpers aren't taking money from the artist/label. they get the same proceeds whether or not the tickets end up getting scalped.
plus, scalpers do arguably provide some social value. they offer people who aren't willing to religiously track product drops the opportunity to actually buy something popular and scarce.
To first point. Bit more complicated imo. The venue would have to tier pricing (which many do via vip) to not exclude the m people who won't pay $100. But does require more effort on venue part.
I simplified it so the example would fit in a single sentence. there are also more entities than just the artist+label organizing the tour/show. the fundamental point remains though: if scalping is a profitable business, the seller is seriously mispricing their product. I'm sure there's a good bit of variance in ticket demand show-to-show, but in total it looks like they are leaving a huge amount of money on the table. I'm not sure why, but I suspect they feel it is "uncool" to have very expensive tickets and worry that it might hurt the artist's image. maybe so, but the pricing is the original problem that is hurting fans and limiting the proceeds. arbitrage is merely a symptom, and the tickets would still be just as scarce without them.
And so you've answered your own misunderstanding of the problem.
It's not a symptom. It's necessary to have those lower prices to keep your image and your fans and impacts your long-term earnings, and so we're back to scalpers being nothing more than parasites and a net loss.
It's the same thing with the shoes, if they prices the shoes at their 'true' value, they alienate their customer base and the shoes lose value. The scalpers are actively harming the market.
There are many things in life where the main objective is not to extract the maximum possible level of profit.
The artists/bookers/venues choose ticket price levels based on a number of factors. They want to fill the venue and be profitable, but they also want to maintain a relationship with fans, which is going to get soured if the fans feel ripped off. There is also the factor of drinks sales, if you pay a ton for the ticket, you'll probably buy fewer drinks, and venues make a lot of money on drinks.
If they priced the tickets as high as the market could possibly bear, only the people with enough disposable income could go. That makes all of the fans who cannot afford the tickets angry that they cannot go, you really don't want to do that if you want to maintain a fan base.
Scalping is illegal in many countries for good reason. Here in Denmark, you can resell tickets all you like, but only at or below face value. It works and the artists/venues get to set the prices at levels that match their fan bases. Scalpers who don't care about the bands, but only about profit, don't get a say, because they they shouldn't have one.
I guess my concern is I don't think simplifications are terribly useful, since it's not a simple topic, and can change wildly depending on the specific circumstance.
Which is why we have people who are experts in marketing and economy, and specialize in specific product areas.
price discovery is price discovery, secondary market is telling you if you mispriced something. mispriced doesn't mean "we should have maximized profits", it just means something was underpriced, its simply acknowledging that the market would have paid more, its just simply the term for it. it seems like that's been lost in the "rebuttals" here, as in I don't think you even need to react or give counterpoints but for some reason you and others feel wired to.
the next thing is overweighing an idea of "artists don't want to piss off their poor fans over the long run". huge assumption. it doesn't matter how an artist stops filling venues eventually. if it happens it happens. "ack! its because I priced my Red Rocks performance too high on April 30th 2016" mmmm, no.
When an artist/booker/venue says "this is how much we want to charge people to attend this event", that is the price they want to charge. They make this choice based on wanting to draw fans in, fill the venue (for drinks sales) and not be seen as fleecing their fans.
The artist/fan relationship is everything.
For a scalper to jump in and say "I can extract more profit by buying all your tickets and fleecing your fans" is parasitic, it is rent-seeking provides literally no value to anyone besides the scalper. And the scalper doesn't care about the artists or the fans, just rent-seeking profit.
There are laws against scalping in many countries for good reasons.
A good scalped can hit over 1000 shoes in a drop. The shoe sites do a pretty weak job protecting aginst vcc cards and small variation in shipping address fields. They could easily ship 1 per address but they choose not to, the scalpers are part of the business model
I wonder if things will get to the point (or maybe we're already there) that it would be feasible enough to set up something akin to a SaaS/PaaS for botting operations. Similar to how DDoS crews rent time and botnet resources for customers, such a service could auction off time slots (e.g. specific 'drop' dates in the case of sneakers) to users who want to buy en masse or ensure that they can at least get some amount of the product they want.
Hey, this is more or less being done. The best bots/groups are bringing in comparable salary if not more than industry standard in their respective fields. If anyone is interested in developing Bots/Platform to secure limited items em masse, please shoot me an email at: sukh@zerosync.io
I have direct connects with some of the biggest sneaker storefronts, and looking for developers.
Wouldn't a bot network used to purchase any kind of good run afoul of the CFAA? I've never heard of such, but I wouldn't put it past a high level company to make a stink and then send Feds to peoples' doors.
In high school I attempted this. I was only able to successfully snipe a handful of Adidas sneakers and sell for a minor gain.
I concluded that it was not worthwhile since I couldn’t develop a way to overcome captchas.
If I were to try this today. I would attempt to reverse engineer the api route used for submitting an order instead of automating the web page via selenium...
This has existed for years. It's big enough that there are entire broker platforms to buy different bots, here are just a few: https://botbroker.io/bots
These bots are used for everything from clothing to video cards.
As hinted in the OP, people buy Supreme products because they (the buyer) view the product as being ‘street’ (not Big Corp) and, therefore, ‘cool’. When, in fact, the opposite is true - Supreme is the epitome of Big Corps bilking kiddies and dummies for $100 Fruit of the Loom t-shirts with shoddy graphics.
I don't think you're aware of the value of the brands then...
Because for example, the people do pay hundreds for Fruit of the Loom or Gildan hoodies with graphics when albums come out. And it's not a secret either, people like that it's a common well established brand making the clothes the graphics go on.
What makes them cool is exclusivity and authenticity (as in being from the brand). After all, no one thinks Supreme made a factory to manufacture bricks: https://stockx.com/supreme-clay-brick-red
Yeezys are also considered cool but they're also by Adidas... a giant boring multinational compared to the image Yeezys portray
I am very aware of what idiots will pay for brand names, but that has nothing to do with any sort of inherent or quantifiable value a product has. I think we, as a society, need to get better at calling people out for being beyond irresponsible with their money. A Supreme block logo slapped on a $1.00 Gildan cotton shirt does not add $99 of value because ‘exclusivity’. Things like the meteoric rise and fall of things like Beanie Babies help illuminate this fact.
You can pay $700 for a North Face Supreme jacket that can be purchased for $120 without the branding... but you’re an idiot for doing so.
Ultimately, it’s just the difference between being financially intelligent and not - the financially smart people are selling the lemmings the products...
Edit, to add a complete tangent: I watched this video of a $100 vs $10,000 guitar today - do you hear $9,900 in price differnece between the 2, or is the value created elsewhere? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDA9iw4po1c
> I am very aware of what idiots will pay for brand names, but that has nothing to do with any sort of inherent or quantifiable value a product has. I think we, as a society, need to get better at calling people out for being beyond irresponsible with their money. A Supreme block logo slapped on a $1.00 Gildan cotton shirt does not add $99 of value
The ego of some people on HN never ceases to amaze me- especially when they still have a dayjob but feel ok to lecture entrepreneurs!
If you are able to spin it for $150, yeah, the logo DID add value - and not just $99, but an extra $50 of profit for you.
That's the base of business.
> Things like the meteoric rise and fall of things like Beanie Babies help illuminate this fact.
Ah, beanie babies and HN, a long love story :)
> You can pay $700 for a North Face Supreme jacket that can be purchased for $120 without the branding... but you’re an idiot for doing so.
Don't be so quick to dismiss the rationality of people purchasing these products.
Many people start companies this way, by noticing and exploiting a trend, and eventually stop working.
Your profile says "Attorney working in Child Welfare" - so you are working class.
Those of us retired thanks to stuff HN loves to mock (crypto, collectibles, whatever) believe the not rational people are those who can't unchain themselves from a job.
Many people won't take the time to explain you and will just downvote and move along. Personally, I think it's sad that most geeks are not business savy.
> The ego of some people on HN never ceases to amaze me
The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
Your comment is 10x more arrogant than the comment you're replying to, as far as I can tell.
From your perspective, so long as you can sell it and make money, you're providing value to the world as an entrepreneur. Not only that, but you pride yourself on it.
But to me you're just a parasite maximizing profit by exploiting people's ignorance for your own personal benefit. The fact that you pride yourself on this leads me to believe you are likely a psychopath.
Also holy fucking shit, you're condescending to someone for being "working class."
> so long as you can sell it and make money, you're providing value to the world as an entrepreneur
Totally! The only reason someone willfully gives you their hard earned money in exchange of something is because whatever this something is, they value it more than the cash.
> to me you're just a parasite maximizing profit by exploiting people's ignorance
Funny, because to me, people living off my tax money are the parasites! Getting something in exchange of nothing, just because they have a pulse and they're still breathing.
> Also holy fucking shit, you're condescending to someone for being "working class."
Well, yeah!! I mean, if you haven't made it yet, don't try to give me life lessons. Because all I can see is someone who's failed (or not succeeded yet), trying to pretend their principles are better than the cash I made - but then how comes their principles can't keep them fed and warm, while my cash does?
If it helps losers not feel too bad about their own failures, I can play along and pretend with them, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously, as that's giving very bad advice to the young and passionate people who browse HN.
That's where I draw the line: not giving wrong advice, the kind of advice you know that is wrong and won't lead to success, but is socially valued (social signaling, being politically correct and all that)
> Money can't buy class
I won't pretend to have any, as "class" is often a shorthand for being good at pretending to be what society wants you to be. I'm my own man, and I don't play nice with those who don't, and I don't care about their excuses of being born poor or whatever. No one is entitled to anything except opinions- and in my opinion, by not accepting reality as it is, you are condemning yourself to the working class.
But as long as you know it and it makes you happy, so be it! Who I am to suggest you live your life differently?
Exploitation has no place in business. You offer a trade. The other party takes it or not. You can't tell them what to do or not do.
> Someone is always left holding the bag when these trends fizzle out.
Funny it's the same thing a lot of people told me when I decided to go all in crypto - that I'd be the fool left holding the bag.
I proved them wrong, but they still don't get it. About 6 month ago, to someone here asking for genuine advice, I told them to put no more than they can lose, about 4 grands IIRC, in BTC to buy a car after the next bull market that was due soon due to the halving.
They laughed, and said it was too uncertain. If they had done so, they'd have their new car by now.
I find it sad that people can't notice and exploit trends, especially geeks who think so highly of their intellectual prowess.
"Street" doesn't mean anything about the manufacturing entity. Polos, Nautica, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Timberland all have company origins that are anything but street. But their brands took hold in the streets. I mean, Nautica is all about sailing imagery, what street level individual gives a damn about a schooner?
I mean that was a pretty recent sale in the grand scheme of their company, so I’m not sure if that’s really fair. Regardless, if their designers are still making products that represent their principles I would think that’s okay. I personally don’t wear Branded clothing but I understand the appeal of their brand.
On the other hand Apple has always had a similar mystique and they’re one of the largest companies ever. I think you’re conflating underground/cool with hip/street wear. I don’t get the hate either way. Let people express themselves without judgement :)
I don’t really agree that Apple is similar. I am no Apple fanboy, but if you want hardware will all the same features, complexity and polish; in particular a phone, there is no competitor that can make an identical clone. Printing vinyl on a hoodie though, that’s a pretty well solved problem.
As for expressing yourself, does it really count? These brands are marketed at you in a million different ways. Then by purchasing what are you expressing?
I'm talking about their branding/advertising and cultural norms, not actual innovation, as in they are considered hip and cool. And yes, that is exactly what marketing is trying to do and it has a clear effect on what people think about the brands and the products and therefore about the purchase of them.
My impression is that most of this stuff is bought by shallow people to show off their wealth to other people. Meanwhile, many others waste a significant portion of their income on them. These gullible people buy overpriced clothes simply to keep up because, through very skilful marketing, this ordinary apparel is held up as something that you should desire or be impressed by.
In the end though, it’s just money that flows from an invested individual’s income to feed a disinterested hedge fund’s balance sheet. It is pretty cringe, and sad on a large scale imo.
Too old to recognize the brand, but I'm not following the logic here at all. What kind of clothing manufacturer do you find most appropriate for a street tough?
There’s stories every few days about how some new “asset class” is exploding in value. Sneakers, baseball cards, diamonds, comic books, Bitcoin (I’m sure there are many others). There are signs of a big bubble all over the place now.
It's tough to come to any conclusion from looking at eBay listings. Especially when many of the listings are from possible scammers.
Sort by "most bids" and set the minimum value to $100. Only a few have even a single bid, with just a couple having multiple bids. Also, the most expensive single-bid items all have sellers with no feedback. The market price is one that buyers are willing to pay, not just one sellers are willing to list.
You should probably call your mom anyway though. I'm sure she'd appreciate the chance to talk to you.
> There are signs of a big bubble all over the place now.
Or is it just that more people want to invest than ever and are seeking yield/return in whatever they can get their hands on? Isn't that a good thing that lots of people have "disposable income" they want to temporarily get rid of? Why does it need to be this doom and gloom "big bubble all over the place" thing?
This isn't investing, it's speculating. There's a difference.
Low interest rates are supposed to fuel growth of productive assets. Creating and expanding businesses that create products and services that people want.
Instead, disposable income and cheap credit are pouring into things like crypto, meme stocks, and sneakers. No new value is being created. These 'assets' only continue to increase in value because of currency devaluation and ponzi scheme like effects, i.e. new people jumping aboard the 'get rich quick' train.
Money cannons. How many trillions has the Fed bought in securities over the last year? Money has to go somewhere - and will eventually start blowing bubbles in weird asset classes.
Serious question: why don't sneaker manufacturers move to an auction model, and simply capture the extra margin for themselves?
Some arguments I've heard are "fairness" (as if regular people happily drop $500 on sneakers) and the marketing optics of some sneaker brand being hot because there are queues outside stores before a drop.
Because every pair will go for a significantly higher amount of money, and it will exclude the vast majority of their fanbase, the size of which is the reason they go for a lot of money in the first place.
Imagine how popular a sports team would remain if normal people could never hope to afford at ticket.
Exactly. In fact, I'd argue this is what "becoming an asset class" means. Liquidity. Secondary markets. Prices that are disconnected with the underlying sneaker. etc.
I think sneaker companies do the opposite to what OP suggests, in fact. They do things like creating abundance in one place and scarcity in another. This creates an opportunity for dealers, speculators, and secondary market activity. That whole complex is what makes sneakers an asset class... which in turn makes it a premium fashion item.
Nitpick: The scarcity isn't perceived. It's real, just "artificial" in the sense that they produce limited amounts on purpose, and limit it in other ways.
It would be very easy to accidentally kill this whole thing by messing with the economics. Rationalize the price too much and the price might become rational.
Being an asset class depends on people treating it like one, that is, as a way to make money. Getting "market" price for the shoes in-store comes at the expense of middlemen, 3rd party auctioneers, investor-collectors, arbitrageurs, etc. Those people are what make Yeezys "an asset class."
These things fall apart when you get too greedy. They already create a flamboyantly artificial scarcity. Trying for "market price" as well is probably too far.
To be fair to Yeezys they are literally the most comfortable pair of shoes I've ever worn in my life. I'm embarrassed to wear my very first pair out in public after they got dripped on by some black gunk from the el train tracks that couldn't even be bleached out but they are serving me very well as indoor shoes and on my treadmill. I own multiple other pairs now so I also feel less bad only wearing those inside.
With all the hype now I think Adidas is actually positioned very well to eventually supplant Nike in the market place. Shoe prices keep going up but Adidas has invested in a new tech that is incredible to wear to justify the cost while combining it with high end fashion.
I was very much in to sneakers growing up and can probably count on one hand the number of non Nike sneakers I ever bought during that time period. Jordans keep going up in price but every single pair I've bought in the past five to ten years has been cheap junk with paint that chips, soles that disintegrate and detach, and just extremely cheap build quality. I've been wearing Jordans for almost my entire life (there are toddler photos of me with a pair of 4s on) and they were my favorite type of sneaker during high school and college. There is a stark difference in the quality. I have a pair of 1s I bought in 2008 I still wear regularly, where as the last pair I bought developed a hole in the bottom after 2 years of use.
This is combined with the massive difference in the marketplace for buying their sneakers. When I was in college I went to exactly one Jordan sneaker drop and the police ended up needing to be called and I was totally turned off to the idea forever. Nike and Adidas run their drops very differently for the most part nowadays, although Yeezy Supply occasionally will backtrack. On Yeezysupply, the Adidas app, and the Adidas confirm app they've mostly settled into a flow where they let you know a week ahead of time a sneaker is coming out, you register your information ahead of time, they do a charge and refund to your card to verify it and then at 9:05 about on release day you get a congratulations notification or a so sorry notification from a random drawing. Before covid they would occasionally also do drops based on GPS location that make you have to goto the store for a guaranteed pair but no guarantee of your size so you'd still have to wait in line, which was extremely annoying but all the sneakers are atleast 1.5x increase in price immediately on release so you could always sell for a small profit to sometimes larger profit.
On the Nike SNKR app you get all the stress of waiting in line from the comfort of your home, you need to monitor the app for shoes with a pending release so you can register for notifications. On the day of you should have atleast two devices like a phone and tablet. The Android app is poorly programmed in comparison to the iOS app for no real reason other than it was farmed out to a bad consulting agency. You need to have all your credit card information saved ahead of time and your verification code memorized. A minute before you need to start tapping the disabled button or monitor www.time.gov. You get into the buy flow and have to read quickly to find your size, enter your memorized verification number, and you wait an arbitrary amount of time for the app to tell you that you if you're getting a pair or not. All these tips I've read and applied but have never actually gotten a pair of sneakers I've wanted from the app. I still buy multiple pairs of sneakers a year, but I have bought one single pair of Nikes in the past few years because the company has made it so difficult for me to give them money.
I believe Nike is living and existing off their former glory when it comes to the sneaker head community. I only ever bother with Nike at this point for classic designs that came out in the 80s and 90s that have been redone in a unique way, such as their collaborations with Virgil and other high end fashion designers. I refuse to pay more t...
I also had a pair of Jordans growing up (7s from the Barcelona Olympics, so they had #9 instead of #23) and a couple of years ago I bought into the hype and found myself looking for a par of 1s. I hadn't bothered doing some basic research so I just knew there were lows, mids and highs. I was looking for a specific colourway (black and white) and I found a pair of mids that had it, so I ordered a pair. I was absolutely appalled by the quality. I don't think they had any trace of real leather anywhere, they were all plastic, but not even plastic that resembles leather somehow, it was just crappy plastic, and I couldn't believe Nike would charge over €100 for this and get away with it. If I hadn't bought those off Nike themselves I would've been convinced they were fakes. I did some research after that and found out that most mids have terrible quality, so ended up getting a pair of highs (bloodlines) that at least are leather. Still, I really doubt any of the models they sell these days would age as well as the originals from the 80s (like https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0665/5171/files/CBJordanBr...). Also they seem to be unable to replicate the design of the originals (which were much slimmer in the toebox), they have made another attempt at this (the High 85 cut) but still I find them too bulky (in pics, haven't seen them in person).
Also I find the artificially limited quantities tiresome, I would've bought several pairs of Jordans but don't have the time or the will to play that game. I think I understand why they do it, but I also wonder how that would compare with a strategy where they would make the most sought after colourways (say bred or chicago) readily available at any time. Like Adidas has done with the Stan Smiths, for example, I can walk into any store that sells Adidas and buy a pair of Stan Smiths in the original colourway (and many others). And after all these years since they exploded in popularity they still seem to be selling a ton of those.
How good are these shoes exactly to justify all this effort and $220 price tag? You can get speciality shoes like Adidas Powerlift for maybe hundred bucks.
Adidas AG produces just 40,000 pairs of each Yeezy release, which are priced at $220 retail and sold through its Yeezy Supply website using a digital lottery.
For $220 you can get a half decent pair of good-year welted shoes, no waiting, any size, any corpulence. For the resale price of these sneakers you can get shoes that will serve you for the rest of your life, you need 6-8 total, not multiple pairs a year. And you can clean them, too. You don't throw them away because you stepped off a train.
Bitcoin allows people to make transactions online with no authority okaying them, donate to banned platforms and cancelled friends, order pharma grade drugs off the Internet, and it all works because of magic of mathematics... sure, it's used for speculation but it's also quite spectacular.
The value of GME was in squeezing hedge funds which is a public good.
You misunderstood, I didn't say those things have no value, I was making a paralel between the logic of their valuation and the logic of fashion accessories valuation.
They're both worth as much as people are willing to believe they're worth, like most things on this planet that are non essential and not regulated.
His question was rhetorical, he even then spent time answering your question. You should thank him and at a minimum learn to be polite if you're the type of person who misunderstands context.
The poster above is buying Yeezy's to wear them though. If you're buying shoes to wear them, then it's a different evaluation than if you're buying the shoes to later resell them. For someone trying to use the shoes, you have to compare the value proposition to other (non-asset) shoes on the market. And I suspect that Yeezy shoes at 220 dollars don't improve very much on 100 dollar shoes, but I've never worn any myself.
edited to add: I have nothing against buying Yeezy's or any other premium product. If it makes you happy and you have the money, go for it! But in terms of pure utility over competitors, it's usually not very good.
> you can get shoes that will serve you for the rest of your life, you need 6-8 total, not multiple pairs a year
I have never had a pair of running shoes that didn't structurally break down after around 600 km maximum. I don't do any unusual running and have tried multiple brands and price points over the years. I think they do just have a reasonable life-span. How are you having shoes that last a life-time? I have to replace mine three or four times a year.
They're talking about dress shoes and boots which are constructed so that they can be resoled.
They're right, too. It's not hard to get a decade or more of good use out of footwear built this way; I've already done it with one pair of boots, and I'm about four years into the ones I got to replace those. I'm not overly gentle with them, either - I don't do urbex any more, but when I did, I did it in the same boots I do everything else in. They'd get scuffed, sure, but cleaned and polished, you'd never know the difference.
I don't know that I'd want to use a pair of well-broken-in 9-hole loggers as running wear, but I don't know that I wouldn't, either; a well-designed shoe or boot can take all kinds of insoles, and while I rarely run unless chased, I'm sure there's a wide range of options available for those who do. And when they wear out, you can replace them, just like you can have a cobbler do with the sole proper when that eventually gets thin.
I guess I don't really know; as I said, I'm not a runner, and maybe there's something about disposable footwear that I'm consequently missing. But it's not like we throw out a whole car when the tires get bald, you know?
A running shoe isn't really anything more than the sole. The foam in the sole simply mechanically breaks down over time and doesn't do its job anymore, and is also literally worn away so will be non-existent at some point.
If you tried to re-sole it you'd be replacing 90% of the material.
It's the same with work boots. At some point scuffing will have removed so much material from the upper that the boot mechanically fails. You just can't fix that as far as I know. You can replace the upper... but let's be honest it's a new boot at this point isn't it?
I think there's a degree here of people replacing their broom head and handle many times and claiming they never need to buy a new broom.
Sure, at some point the upper's so worn out that you have to replace the whole boot. They don't last forever, just a lot longer, especially when properly maintained.
A while back I actually sat down and worked out the amortization for my last pair of boots, including replacement insoles, outsoles, laces, and the setting kit and grommets I needed when the factory parts started failing. (To be clear: this was steel parts wearing out before leather ones did. That's a damn good boot.) I don't have the figures to hand right now, but as I recall, adjusted for inflation, it worked out to around $60 a year in 2017 dollars. On reflection, I should've counted in mink oil and polish too, which might bring it closer to $65.
Granted that it's a touch Ship of Theseus, with an occasional maintenance requirement besides, and you need to be OK with the fact that your boots will look the same for as long as you wear them. But that's still not a lot to pay for good footwear, and a well-polished toebox has a timeless style all its own.
honestly that seems like a lot of trouble to go through to not even save that much money. I usually buy doc martens, which are not complete trash but definitely not as well-made as they used to be. they look good and feel good on my feet. they only last about two years if worn everyday, but that's only $120 (or less as they're often on sale) every two years, which works out about the same as your shoe spend.
Eh, I mean, that's $120 and a break-in every two years, and it's been a long time since I gave up wearing those but I recall the break-in taking the same uncomfortable couple of months for them as it does for the boots I wear. Rather only do that once a decade if I can help it.
> How good are these shoes exactly to justify all this effort and $220 price tag?
The same question would apply to those spending over $220 on mechanical keyboards: these keyboards are good, but not k times better than the keyboard that come with your laptop.
Yet people buy them: there's certainly a fashion effect, but they must also be at least a bit good, or good enough to justify the pricetag and effort to buy them.
If you have disposable income, you care about comfort. I haven't heard of your "good year welted shoes" and a google search returns something horrible looking (unless you are over 60 or have to wear a suit maybe?)
The yeezys look good to me, and I've heard a lot of people praise their comfort. Will they be better than the $150 limited ed sneakers I currently wear? That's all I care about about!
> For the resale price of these sneakers you can get shoes that will serve you for the rest of your life
I never understood that approach. $220, $500 ... it's just a price. I'm likely to make another $220 in the rest of my life :)
So if they looks good, feel better, and I can afford them, why the hell not?
I don't understand how people wear crocs. To me they are some of the most uncomfortable shoes ever. The foot slides around rubbing against whichever side in the direction you're going and there is no even support.
This made me laugh because it hits home. I've gone through many boots, hiking shoes, tennis shoes, and more and always had some complaint about discomfort in some way.
Finally found my grail I can literally walk in forever with zero foot discomfort. Some 10 dollar Islander brand flip flops from Asia. I've got like 5 more pair in the closet.
I got my first pair of crocs as indoor well after my first pair of yeezys after hearing for years how comfortable they are.
Yeezys are far far more comfortable, but I still wear my crocs inside most of the time because they are slippers and I can just jump into them. Yeezys you have to put the effort to put them on like socks.
I'm surprised author just have figured that one out, it's been here for like 6 years. As in any system, people will try to game it, and reselling is far from being an incomprehensible one.
I read somewhere that athletic shoes don't last. 20-30 years, and they crumble away, even if left untouched in the box.
I suppose it's like the foam insulation on my '72 Dodge - touch it and it turns to dust. Some of the plastic parts crack and disintegrate. Rubber falls apart. It was never designed to last this long.
I don't think these shoes come in a sealed box though. Nothing stops you looking at them even if you're going to resell them. And if you are going to resell them, you'll need to state the condition, and as the thread says the condition deteriorates.
I think we're talking about expensive high-end shoes here. That kind of listing may work on Facebook Marketplace, but since everyone knows shoes can deteriorate (the point of the thread) that wouldn't cut it here.
> Wittgenstein invites readers to imagine a community in which the individuals each have a box containing a "beetle". "No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle."
> If the "beetle" had a use in the language of these people, it could not be as the name of something – because it is entirely possible that each person had something completely different in their box, or even that the thing in the box constantly changed, or that each box was in fact empty. The content of the box is irrelevant to whatever language game it is used in.
This doesn't make sense. The hypothesis already states that "beetle" has a use in the language of these people, and that it refers to the contents of each person's box.
That the boxes might have different contents from person to person or from time to time isn't an obstacle to that; most words can freely refer to different things as long as those different things have some similarity (such as being located within a special box). Does "salary" refer to a thing? Does "pet"? Does "sister"? How about "lucky charm"? Are these things the same for everyone, because they are referred to by the same words?
The closest analogy, of course, is "soul", but while souls do not exist, nobody claims that the word doesn't refer to a thing. It refers to a thing that doesn't exist.
Of course, it's the same idea. You should also think of fractional reserve banking, and the popular conspiracy theory that the gold Fort Knox is supposed to hold was removed long ago.
It looks like to me that the demographic that participates in this market on both the supply (scalpers, not the mfg.) and demand ends are rich suburbia boys.
I wonder how he manages to convince/prove to buyers that he's selling authentic product. The problem with buying high-end sneakers on the secondary market is you're very likely to get stuck with a counterfeit. People reselling authentic shoes need to be able to build trust, and it seems like a tough issue.
I'm going to be very honest here: this whole obsession with artificially limited commodity items like sneakers is utterly insane.
Perhaps my outlook is just old-fashioned and practical, but to me, shoes and clothes and similar practical items are meant to be used and worn, not locked away as some sort of store of value, with absolutely no practical purpose, to slowly deteriorate and turn to dust, just because an artificially limited supply was created, and because hype on social media told you to desire them.
Use what you buy. If you buy things that you end up not using, give them away to someone who will actually use them. A nicely worn pair of shoes is admirable and completely worn out shoes are a badge of honor. A pair of shoes that just sit unused in the box is a waste.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 291 ms ] threadI like concrete things. Rugged tools, reliable cars, but these are boring. You can't build a bubble on boring, moored ideas, you need hype.
...except for houses
Concrete to abstract:
- make a house yourself
- buy a house with cash
- buy a house with a mortgage with a large down payment (low risk, easy to back)
- buy a house with good credit and less down payment but PPI (riskier, the bank needs to hedge more)
- no down payment, less than stellar credit, more house than you need, etc.
The latter is super high risk and normally would not be underwritten. But someone figured out you could bundle the risk in order to distribute that risk, surely only a collapse of the whole housing market could make them massively default! Oops.
He said "'first-world' countries like America".
You may be confusing the term "like" and "exclusive".
I also found it a useful comment in that I now know the correct term for this sort of thing (Veblen goods).
But yes, sure. I do try to allow others, to permit the flourishing, wild world around me. I don't take umbrage with this unreason. But it does feel like so many cycles have such poor self-correction, and that does cause a generalized concern.
Are the sellers not able to limit based on CC number? Perhaps not. I know most websites don't actually have any visibility into the payment info that is usually handled by a third party payment processor integration.
Seriously tho, something must be possible. A payment processor feature that has allotment restrictions based on client+card or delivery address must be possible. Payment processors should be jumping at the opportunity to charge extra for that type of protection for clients that are selling limited high-demand products.
Obv using more cards is a workaround, but it doesn't sound like the hoarder even had to go that far.
The thing is, it's trivial to come up with fake card details. Stupidly trivial.
And the more intensive your verification, the lower your conversion rate from click to sale...
So the idea would have to be something like validating valid ID before the sale happens, since validating a real form of identification can take days in some cases.
Maybe you could become a household name in anti-scalping and get people to sign up before they ever buy something from a specific retailer, then provide an API retailers can use to verify a "real person" was registered on your site with a given set of info.
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The problem is convincing a retailer to let you get hooks in their checkout system for this. At the end of the day demand is so high for these things even taking dissatisfaction into account it really isn't costing the retailer anything at all...
If anything it's just driving demand even higher as it attracts speculators who otherwise wouldn't be interested...
Well, the retailer only cares enough to look like they care enough so that they don't garner negative press.
The retailer really only cares that they sell. Yes, the retailer would like to capture some of that scalper premium but doing so without also alienating the customer base is difficult. (see: Ticketmaster--whose almost sole purpose is to serve as a blame repository for egregious ticket prices)
In the space of limited special edition stuff, a retailer is not going to last long with that mindset. If a brand gets a reputation that they have lenient buying restrictions, and all their stuff ends up at resellers instead of true enthusiasts, that brand will swiftly become irrelvant.
This article may cause waves in niche for Jordans and Yeezys, and suddenly those products are no longer quite as cool or worth quite as much, simply because now you know it was just some dude buying up stock... it really kind of takes away part of the fun ownership of the stuff in way.
Imagine going to buy a pair of sneakers and the site asks for a scan of your federal ID. Do you even know if you have one? Where is it? Do you trust the site? It could take days to verify... maybe the scan was blurry and needs to be redone...
No retailer would add something like this to their checkout flow, it's a very extreme solution
Just because some people will do something doesn't mean everyone will. Many people would protest having to provide government ID to buy sneakers.
Even if it scares off 1 person why does a retailer want to do that, pay the money it costs. and deal with the optics of being the ones asking for federal ID to buy shoes when they can literally just not instead.
Like I said above, demand is so far above supply it doesn't matter if 100% of sales go to scalpers anymore, they'll still sell out, and the aftermarket will still eat it up, no matter how bad they feel about not being able to get drops directly.
> the more intensive your verification, the lower your conversion rate ^ True, but selling through stock does not seem to be the issue for this segment of sellers.
To some degree the concert ticket sellers have already (finally) solved this, haven't they? I like your idea tho, that type of vetting costs money because it probably involves humans do some amount of work. I have never investigated what is available, but the fact that I would even have to investigate what is available tells me there isn't already some obvious choice out there.
I mean its real to people that believe they can get those shoes for totally not flipping them and wearing them. But there is a reason there is no serious effort to stop them by the merchants.
It's a net loss for everyone involved in the production of actual value.
So economically it might be neutral, but in terms of social value it's a massive loss.
plus, scalpers do arguably provide some social value. they offer people who aren't willing to religiously track product drops the opportunity to actually buy something popular and scarce.
It's not a symptom. It's necessary to have those lower prices to keep your image and your fans and impacts your long-term earnings, and so we're back to scalpers being nothing more than parasites and a net loss.
It's the same thing with the shoes, if they prices the shoes at their 'true' value, they alienate their customer base and the shoes lose value. The scalpers are actively harming the market.
The artists/bookers/venues choose ticket price levels based on a number of factors. They want to fill the venue and be profitable, but they also want to maintain a relationship with fans, which is going to get soured if the fans feel ripped off. There is also the factor of drinks sales, if you pay a ton for the ticket, you'll probably buy fewer drinks, and venues make a lot of money on drinks.
If they priced the tickets as high as the market could possibly bear, only the people with enough disposable income could go. That makes all of the fans who cannot afford the tickets angry that they cannot go, you really don't want to do that if you want to maintain a fan base.
Scalping is illegal in many countries for good reason. Here in Denmark, you can resell tickets all you like, but only at or below face value. It works and the artists/venues get to set the prices at levels that match their fan bases. Scalpers who don't care about the bands, but only about profit, don't get a say, because they they shouldn't have one.
Which is why we have people who are experts in marketing and economy, and specialize in specific product areas.
the next thing is overweighing an idea of "artists don't want to piss off their poor fans over the long run". huge assumption. it doesn't matter how an artist stops filling venues eventually. if it happens it happens. "ack! its because I priced my Red Rocks performance too high on April 30th 2016" mmmm, no.
The artist/fan relationship is everything.
For a scalper to jump in and say "I can extract more profit by buying all your tickets and fleecing your fans" is parasitic, it is rent-seeking provides literally no value to anyone besides the scalper. And the scalper doesn't care about the artists or the fans, just rent-seeking profit.
There are laws against scalping in many countries for good reasons.
Heck I have a feeling adecent number of people who work on such operations are on HN
https://www.reddit.com/r/shoebots/
https://shop.houseofcarts.io
I have direct connects with some of the biggest sneaker storefronts, and looking for developers.
I concluded that it was not worthwhile since I couldn’t develop a way to overcome captchas.
If I were to try this today. I would attempt to reverse engineer the api route used for submitting an order instead of automating the web page via selenium...
These bots are used for everything from clothing to video cards.
Because for example, the people do pay hundreds for Fruit of the Loom or Gildan hoodies with graphics when albums come out. And it's not a secret either, people like that it's a common well established brand making the clothes the graphics go on.
What makes them cool is exclusivity and authenticity (as in being from the brand). After all, no one thinks Supreme made a factory to manufacture bricks: https://stockx.com/supreme-clay-brick-red
Yeezys are also considered cool but they're also by Adidas... a giant boring multinational compared to the image Yeezys portray
You can pay $700 for a North Face Supreme jacket that can be purchased for $120 without the branding... but you’re an idiot for doing so.
Ultimately, it’s just the difference between being financially intelligent and not - the financially smart people are selling the lemmings the products...
Edit, to add a complete tangent: I watched this video of a $100 vs $10,000 guitar today - do you hear $9,900 in price differnece between the 2, or is the value created elsewhere? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KDA9iw4po1c
The ego of some people on HN never ceases to amaze me- especially when they still have a dayjob but feel ok to lecture entrepreneurs!
If you are able to spin it for $150, yeah, the logo DID add value - and not just $99, but an extra $50 of profit for you.
That's the base of business.
> Things like the meteoric rise and fall of things like Beanie Babies help illuminate this fact.
Ah, beanie babies and HN, a long love story :)
> You can pay $700 for a North Face Supreme jacket that can be purchased for $120 without the branding... but you’re an idiot for doing so.
Don't be so quick to dismiss the rationality of people purchasing these products.
Many people start companies this way, by noticing and exploiting a trend, and eventually stop working.
Your profile says "Attorney working in Child Welfare" - so you are working class.
Those of us retired thanks to stuff HN loves to mock (crypto, collectibles, whatever) believe the not rational people are those who can't unchain themselves from a job.
Many people won't take the time to explain you and will just downvote and move along. Personally, I think it's sad that most geeks are not business savy.
The hypocrisy is strong with this one.
Your comment is 10x more arrogant than the comment you're replying to, as far as I can tell.
From your perspective, so long as you can sell it and make money, you're providing value to the world as an entrepreneur. Not only that, but you pride yourself on it.
But to me you're just a parasite maximizing profit by exploiting people's ignorance for your own personal benefit. The fact that you pride yourself on this leads me to believe you are likely a psychopath.
Also holy fucking shit, you're condescending to someone for being "working class."
One thing is obvious. Money can't buy class.
Totally! The only reason someone willfully gives you their hard earned money in exchange of something is because whatever this something is, they value it more than the cash.
> to me you're just a parasite maximizing profit by exploiting people's ignorance
Funny, because to me, people living off my tax money are the parasites! Getting something in exchange of nothing, just because they have a pulse and they're still breathing.
> Also holy fucking shit, you're condescending to someone for being "working class."
Well, yeah!! I mean, if you haven't made it yet, don't try to give me life lessons. Because all I can see is someone who's failed (or not succeeded yet), trying to pretend their principles are better than the cash I made - but then how comes their principles can't keep them fed and warm, while my cash does?
If it helps losers not feel too bad about their own failures, I can play along and pretend with them, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously, as that's giving very bad advice to the young and passionate people who browse HN.
That's where I draw the line: not giving wrong advice, the kind of advice you know that is wrong and won't lead to success, but is socially valued (social signaling, being politically correct and all that)
> Money can't buy class
I won't pretend to have any, as "class" is often a shorthand for being good at pretending to be what society wants you to be. I'm my own man, and I don't play nice with those who don't, and I don't care about their excuses of being born poor or whatever. No one is entitled to anything except opinions- and in my opinion, by not accepting reality as it is, you are condemning yourself to the working class.
But as long as you know it and it makes you happy, so be it! Who I am to suggest you live your life differently?
But that also requires exploiting people. Someone is always left holding the bag when these trends fizzle out.
> Someone is always left holding the bag when these trends fizzle out.
Funny it's the same thing a lot of people told me when I decided to go all in crypto - that I'd be the fool left holding the bag.
I proved them wrong, but they still don't get it. About 6 month ago, to someone here asking for genuine advice, I told them to put no more than they can lose, about 4 grands IIRC, in BTC to buy a car after the next bull market that was due soon due to the halving.
They laughed, and said it was too uncertain. If they had done so, they'd have their new car by now.
I find it sad that people can't notice and exploit trends, especially geeks who think so highly of their intellectual prowess.
However, it makes no sense to compare adidas to the carlyle group.
I'm saying the owners behind the scene don't matter. The brand is the brand, and the owners are the owners.
Supreme could be owned by Blackstone and I don't think anyone would care.
On the other hand Apple has always had a similar mystique and they’re one of the largest companies ever. I think you’re conflating underground/cool with hip/street wear. I don’t get the hate either way. Let people express themselves without judgement :)
As for expressing yourself, does it really count? These brands are marketed at you in a million different ways. Then by purchasing what are you expressing?
I find it interesting and rather sad that people equate buying things with expressing themselves.
In the end though, it’s just money that flows from an invested individual’s income to feed a disinterested hedge fund’s balance sheet. It is pretty cringe, and sad on a large scale imo.
https://www.vfc.com/investors/news-events-presentations/pres...
Edit: I just checked Ebay... I think I need to call my mom and see if she still has those things anywhere, holy shit - https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...
Sort by "most bids" and set the minimum value to $100. Only a few have even a single bid, with just a couple having multiple bids. Also, the most expensive single-bid items all have sellers with no feedback. The market price is one that buyers are willing to pay, not just one sellers are willing to list.
You should probably call your mom anyway though. I'm sure she'd appreciate the chance to talk to you.
Does eBay still let you search closed listings if you're logged in?
This is great advice, thanks for the reminder :)
Or is it just that more people want to invest than ever and are seeking yield/return in whatever they can get their hands on? Isn't that a good thing that lots of people have "disposable income" they want to temporarily get rid of? Why does it need to be this doom and gloom "big bubble all over the place" thing?
Low interest rates are supposed to fuel growth of productive assets. Creating and expanding businesses that create products and services that people want.
Instead, disposable income and cheap credit are pouring into things like crypto, meme stocks, and sneakers. No new value is being created. These 'assets' only continue to increase in value because of currency devaluation and ponzi scheme like effects, i.e. new people jumping aboard the 'get rich quick' train.
Some arguments I've heard are "fairness" (as if regular people happily drop $500 on sneakers) and the marketing optics of some sneaker brand being hot because there are queues outside stores before a drop.
Imagine how popular a sports team would remain if normal people could never hope to afford at ticket.
I think sneaker companies do the opposite to what OP suggests, in fact. They do things like creating abundance in one place and scarcity in another. This creates an opportunity for dealers, speculators, and secondary market activity. That whole complex is what makes sneakers an asset class... which in turn makes it a premium fashion item.
Nitpick: The scarcity isn't perceived. It's real, just "artificial" in the sense that they produce limited amounts on purpose, and limit it in other ways.
Being an asset class depends on people treating it like one, that is, as a way to make money. Getting "market" price for the shoes in-store comes at the expense of middlemen, 3rd party auctioneers, investor-collectors, arbitrageurs, etc. Those people are what make Yeezys "an asset class."
These things fall apart when you get too greedy. They already create a flamboyantly artificial scarcity. Trying for "market price" as well is probably too far.
Very eloquently put
With all the hype now I think Adidas is actually positioned very well to eventually supplant Nike in the market place. Shoe prices keep going up but Adidas has invested in a new tech that is incredible to wear to justify the cost while combining it with high end fashion.
I was very much in to sneakers growing up and can probably count on one hand the number of non Nike sneakers I ever bought during that time period. Jordans keep going up in price but every single pair I've bought in the past five to ten years has been cheap junk with paint that chips, soles that disintegrate and detach, and just extremely cheap build quality. I've been wearing Jordans for almost my entire life (there are toddler photos of me with a pair of 4s on) and they were my favorite type of sneaker during high school and college. There is a stark difference in the quality. I have a pair of 1s I bought in 2008 I still wear regularly, where as the last pair I bought developed a hole in the bottom after 2 years of use.
This is combined with the massive difference in the marketplace for buying their sneakers. When I was in college I went to exactly one Jordan sneaker drop and the police ended up needing to be called and I was totally turned off to the idea forever. Nike and Adidas run their drops very differently for the most part nowadays, although Yeezy Supply occasionally will backtrack. On Yeezysupply, the Adidas app, and the Adidas confirm app they've mostly settled into a flow where they let you know a week ahead of time a sneaker is coming out, you register your information ahead of time, they do a charge and refund to your card to verify it and then at 9:05 about on release day you get a congratulations notification or a so sorry notification from a random drawing. Before covid they would occasionally also do drops based on GPS location that make you have to goto the store for a guaranteed pair but no guarantee of your size so you'd still have to wait in line, which was extremely annoying but all the sneakers are atleast 1.5x increase in price immediately on release so you could always sell for a small profit to sometimes larger profit.
On the Nike SNKR app you get all the stress of waiting in line from the comfort of your home, you need to monitor the app for shoes with a pending release so you can register for notifications. On the day of you should have atleast two devices like a phone and tablet. The Android app is poorly programmed in comparison to the iOS app for no real reason other than it was farmed out to a bad consulting agency. You need to have all your credit card information saved ahead of time and your verification code memorized. A minute before you need to start tapping the disabled button or monitor www.time.gov. You get into the buy flow and have to read quickly to find your size, enter your memorized verification number, and you wait an arbitrary amount of time for the app to tell you that you if you're getting a pair or not. All these tips I've read and applied but have never actually gotten a pair of sneakers I've wanted from the app. I still buy multiple pairs of sneakers a year, but I have bought one single pair of Nikes in the past few years because the company has made it so difficult for me to give them money.
I believe Nike is living and existing off their former glory when it comes to the sneaker head community. I only ever bother with Nike at this point for classic designs that came out in the 80s and 90s that have been redone in a unique way, such as their collaborations with Virgil and other high end fashion designers. I refuse to pay more t...
I also had a pair of Jordans growing up (7s from the Barcelona Olympics, so they had #9 instead of #23) and a couple of years ago I bought into the hype and found myself looking for a par of 1s. I hadn't bothered doing some basic research so I just knew there were lows, mids and highs. I was looking for a specific colourway (black and white) and I found a pair of mids that had it, so I ordered a pair. I was absolutely appalled by the quality. I don't think they had any trace of real leather anywhere, they were all plastic, but not even plastic that resembles leather somehow, it was just crappy plastic, and I couldn't believe Nike would charge over €100 for this and get away with it. If I hadn't bought those off Nike themselves I would've been convinced they were fakes. I did some research after that and found out that most mids have terrible quality, so ended up getting a pair of highs (bloodlines) that at least are leather. Still, I really doubt any of the models they sell these days would age as well as the originals from the 80s (like https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0665/5171/files/CBJordanBr...). Also they seem to be unable to replicate the design of the originals (which were much slimmer in the toebox), they have made another attempt at this (the High 85 cut) but still I find them too bulky (in pics, haven't seen them in person).
Also I find the artificially limited quantities tiresome, I would've bought several pairs of Jordans but don't have the time or the will to play that game. I think I understand why they do it, but I also wonder how that would compare with a strategy where they would make the most sought after colourways (say bred or chicago) readily available at any time. Like Adidas has done with the Stan Smiths, for example, I can walk into any store that sells Adidas and buy a pair of Stan Smiths in the original colourway (and many others). And after all these years since they exploded in popularity they still seem to be selling a ton of those.
Adidas AG produces just 40,000 pairs of each Yeezy release, which are priced at $220 retail and sold through its Yeezy Supply website using a digital lottery.
For $220 you can get a half decent pair of good-year welted shoes, no waiting, any size, any corpulence. For the resale price of these sneakers you can get shoes that will serve you for the rest of your life, you need 6-8 total, not multiple pairs a year. And you can clean them, too. You don't throw them away because you stepped off a train.
How good is bitcoin or GME to justify X valuation? Anything can be of X value as long as enough people believe it has X value.
The value of GME was in squeezing hedge funds which is a public good.
More importantly though, OP actually wears them.
They're both worth as much as people are willing to believe they're worth, like most things on this planet that are non essential and not regulated.
Excuse me?! Where was I being impolite?
>His question was rhetorical, he even then spent time answering your question
My original question was rhetorical and didn't need any explanation, as I answered it myself in the next sentence, thank you very much.
>if you're the type of person who misunderstands context
This personal attack is just needlessly snarky and adds no value to this discussion.
On a slightly different topic (srsly) would there be a way of saying what I said without it sounding snarky? I was trying to be polite.
edited to add: I have nothing against buying Yeezy's or any other premium product. If it makes you happy and you have the money, go for it! But in terms of pure utility over competitors, it's usually not very good.
I have never had a pair of running shoes that didn't structurally break down after around 600 km maximum. I don't do any unusual running and have tried multiple brands and price points over the years. I think they do just have a reasonable life-span. How are you having shoes that last a life-time? I have to replace mine three or four times a year.
My running shoes (ASICS GT 2000) last about 1,000km. But I’m not a heavy person.
They're right, too. It's not hard to get a decade or more of good use out of footwear built this way; I've already done it with one pair of boots, and I'm about four years into the ones I got to replace those. I'm not overly gentle with them, either - I don't do urbex any more, but when I did, I did it in the same boots I do everything else in. They'd get scuffed, sure, but cleaned and polished, you'd never know the difference.
I don't know that I'd want to use a pair of well-broken-in 9-hole loggers as running wear, but I don't know that I wouldn't, either; a well-designed shoe or boot can take all kinds of insoles, and while I rarely run unless chased, I'm sure there's a wide range of options available for those who do. And when they wear out, you can replace them, just like you can have a cobbler do with the sole proper when that eventually gets thin.
I guess I don't really know; as I said, I'm not a runner, and maybe there's something about disposable footwear that I'm consequently missing. But it's not like we throw out a whole car when the tires get bald, you know?
If you tried to re-sole it you'd be replacing 90% of the material.
It's the same with work boots. At some point scuffing will have removed so much material from the upper that the boot mechanically fails. You just can't fix that as far as I know. You can replace the upper... but let's be honest it's a new boot at this point isn't it?
I think there's a degree here of people replacing their broom head and handle many times and claiming they never need to buy a new broom.
A while back I actually sat down and worked out the amortization for my last pair of boots, including replacement insoles, outsoles, laces, and the setting kit and grommets I needed when the factory parts started failing. (To be clear: this was steel parts wearing out before leather ones did. That's a damn good boot.) I don't have the figures to hand right now, but as I recall, adjusted for inflation, it worked out to around $60 a year in 2017 dollars. On reflection, I should've counted in mink oil and polish too, which might bring it closer to $65.
Granted that it's a touch Ship of Theseus, with an occasional maintenance requirement besides, and you need to be OK with the fact that your boots will look the same for as long as you wear them. But that's still not a lot to pay for good footwear, and a well-polished toebox has a timeless style all its own.
The same question would apply to those spending over $220 on mechanical keyboards: these keyboards are good, but not k times better than the keyboard that come with your laptop.
Yet people buy them: there's certainly a fashion effect, but they must also be at least a bit good, or good enough to justify the pricetag and effort to buy them.
If you have disposable income, you care about comfort. I haven't heard of your "good year welted shoes" and a google search returns something horrible looking (unless you are over 60 or have to wear a suit maybe?)
The yeezys look good to me, and I've heard a lot of people praise their comfort. Will they be better than the $150 limited ed sneakers I currently wear? That's all I care about about!
> For the resale price of these sneakers you can get shoes that will serve you for the rest of your life
I never understood that approach. $220, $500 ... it's just a price. I'm likely to make another $220 in the rest of my life :)
So if they looks good, feel better, and I can afford them, why the hell not?
Even at that price though I feel like they're over priced. They should be more like $25. I think you can get them on sale for that price sometimes.
Finally found my grail I can literally walk in forever with zero foot discomfort. Some 10 dollar Islander brand flip flops from Asia. I've got like 5 more pair in the closet.
Yeezys are far far more comfortable, but I still wear my crocs inside most of the time because they are slippers and I can just jump into them. Yeezys you have to put the effort to put them on like socks.
I suppose it's like the foam insulation on my '72 Dodge - touch it and it turns to dust. Some of the plastic parts crack and disintegrate. Rubber falls apart. It was never designed to last this long.
Ah, but if they're a store of value that is never removed from the box, does it matter whether they work? Does it matter whether they're in there?
> If the "beetle" had a use in the language of these people, it could not be as the name of something – because it is entirely possible that each person had something completely different in their box, or even that the thing in the box constantly changed, or that each box was in fact empty. The content of the box is irrelevant to whatever language game it is used in.
This doesn't make sense. The hypothesis already states that "beetle" has a use in the language of these people, and that it refers to the contents of each person's box.
That the boxes might have different contents from person to person or from time to time isn't an obstacle to that; most words can freely refer to different things as long as those different things have some similarity (such as being located within a special box). Does "salary" refer to a thing? Does "pet"? Does "sister"? How about "lucky charm"? Are these things the same for everyone, because they are referred to by the same words?
The closest analogy, of course, is "soul", but while souls do not exist, nobody claims that the word doesn't refer to a thing. It refers to a thing that doesn't exist.
For some reason, this makes me think of USDT.
New plastic foam midsoles don’t crumble, but the glue that attaches them to the other parts of the shoe still does.
Into the garbage :-)
This whole sneakerhead thing is insane. Shoes are meant to be worn, not stored away like some ridiculous baseball card.
It is yet another sign that consumerism and by extension capitalism is a delusion and an unsustainable bubble.
Some I was able to take a picture and then fell apart when I put it back in the box.
And then about 10 fell apart when the person who purchased them, decided to wear them.
These stories always blow my mind that purport just an ordinary person could do this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEOB5sltnC8
And companies build their products around this:
https://secretlair.wizards.com
Perhaps my outlook is just old-fashioned and practical, but to me, shoes and clothes and similar practical items are meant to be used and worn, not locked away as some sort of store of value, with absolutely no practical purpose, to slowly deteriorate and turn to dust, just because an artificially limited supply was created, and because hype on social media told you to desire them.
Use what you buy. If you buy things that you end up not using, give them away to someone who will actually use them. A nicely worn pair of shoes is admirable and completely worn out shoes are a badge of honor. A pair of shoes that just sit unused in the box is a waste.