18 Oct
2000
18 Oct
'00
3:26 p.m.
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Aaron Nabil wrote:
Again, ascribing "state of mind" to people
just because they don't
volunteer their rationale to you is silly. You aren't the one making
the decision, they don't have an obligation to you to "explain
themselves" to you.
As a general rule, you can expect people to act in their own best
interest. If someone thinks that reducing the price is in their interest,
that's what they will do. If they think throwing it in the dumpster is in
their best interest, that's what they will do.
I'm not sure which of my expressions needs backup, but first and foremost,
it's my stuff, I don't need to "explain" my actions, you can trust
that
being a reasonable person I'm going to act in my best interests. As for
throwing away things being "less damaging" than selling them, I'll
include a couple illustrations from "real life" to show how that it may
not be the case. But what is important is that this isn't intended as an
exautive list, I'm simply pointing out that people can have valid reasons
for what they do even if they don't share them with you.
Local high-tech company T has a surplus sales store, but instead of
selling their own equipment at the store, they scrap it and only get
a tiny fraction of the value back. They do this to avoid competing with
their own new products.
Hobbiest A has acquired most of the remaining sets of a particular test
set that is in high demand on the surplus market. He has a large number
of junk units that he could sell on Ebay or to other users for a few
hundred dollars, but they would get fixed up and sold in competition with
his really nice units (worth $1000), so he throws them away instead.
Aaron, sorry to say it but every point you're making here points towards
selfishness. There seems to be no concern here with a greater ideal
outside of monetary gain. Hey, utlimately it's your perogative, but there
are other things to consider besides how much money you can line your
pockets with. This is, after all, primarily a hobby of preservation.
Throwing stuff out because you can't get what you want for it is the
antithesis of what this is supposed to be about.
As for your other example (which I snipped), isn't it utlimately better to
get SOMETHING for your stuff than just throwing it out? Pricing your gear
is a fine art. If it doesn't sell at one venue, you should either decide
if it's more worth your time and money to warehouse it until the next
event, or to try to cut your losses and get what you can for it. If it
consistently doesn't sell, then you probably have something that's not
worth any price, which does not equate to worthless. It might still be
useful to someone, but it isn't worth exchanging money for. There are a
great many examples, but you can use your own imagination. Taking it at
this point and smashing it to bits just so nobody will be able to take it
home shows contempt for buyers, ergo, poor character (again, in my
opinion).
I take my examples from my parents, who are very savvy when it comes to
both buying and selling, and also very pragmatic. My Mom has frequent
garage sales to get rid of excess crap my Dad has packratted. She's a
tough negotiator, and will be very insistent about a price on something,
but she's not stupid. She'll sooner take a little less money for it than
close up for the day and still have a yard full of crap. To simply throw
it away would be foolish. It serves her no purpose to throw anything
away, even if all she gets is a dollar for it. That's a dollar she didn't
have before.
You can see how my philosophy on these matters was developed from
obersiving my parents. It's also a fairly typical Arab perspective :)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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