Departing a little from my usual inquiries today to touch on the quite "analog" business of people buying and selling stuff.
Of course, there are lots and lots of theories about how free markets work, and I'll be the first to admit that they sometimes scare me a little. But I forge forward, with the old "Buyer Beware!" truism firmly in mind.
That said, it seems like "profiting through deception" is becoming a more and more common sight, these days.
One of the ads that popped up on the sidebar of my screen was offering — it seemed — late 1800s US silver dollars for sale.
Of course, they weren't actually. They were offering replicas, even though their advertising went to a great deal of trouble to hide that fact in almost invisibly tiny print. You just do not get a classic "Morgan Dollar" for $2.95.
In turn, that made me think about the holidays and how we in a few months will start to see the inevitable flood of ads offering "Discount US postage!" I have seen quite a few of those... typically offering something like a roll of 100 "Forever" stamps (current price $73.00) for something like $22.95, with free shipping.
Trust me, no such thing exists!
But I'm sure there are some people who are looking to send actual paper Christmas cards who will take the bait... and be sadly disappointed.
Now, it would be one thing if these were mostly limited to sketchy venues and the Dark Web... but they are not. In fact, they are out in broad daylight on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Etsy, Amazon and other ecommerce venues that support 3rd party vendors. And judging by the sheer number of listings, it doesn't look like the host sites are particularly concerned about putting a stop to the practice!
After all, those ecommerce giants get to collect the seller fees, regardless of whether the product sold is a forgery, or a scam.
Who ends up losing?
I suppose its those who don't question the reality they are looking at, or they simply don't know any better and don't know how (or don't care) to do their own research.
Getting back to eBay for a moment — because our household uses eBay extensively — several of the collectibles categories seem to grow sketchier and sketchier as the years go by.
And some things are just difficult to explain.
Like one seller, based in Texas, who has thousands of listings for allegedly "rare and collectible" old postage stamps, almost all priced at as much as 100 times their actual value.
Not forgeries, or anything like that; not misleading photos — in fact, they were quite good — but just poor quality and not particularly valuable... offered for $50, $100, $200 and more, while being worth maybe 25 cents to an actual stamp collector.
Of course that's one thing, and I'd submit that "any idiot" would know better than to pay $100 for something that's worth $1.25, on a sunny day!
That's not what's scary. What scary is that aforesaid seller evidently sells hundreds of these "treasures," and has a damn near 100% feedback rating... 5 stars, all the way!
Makes me shake my head and ponder the distinct possibility that we're doing it wrong by offering the genuine article at something that's close to actual market value!
Frightening Afterthought...
So, having contemplated this for a bit, I got to think about the broader human condition and how it increasingly seems like the world is gradually losing its grip on what has (historically speaking) been characterized as REALITY.
As in, more and more people are being driven by wishful thinking rather than by what actually IS, and more and more societal norms are being modified to accommodate people's imagination rather than their reality.
This thing I call "The TEMU Effect" speaks somewhat to this in the sense that it is increasingly "normalizing" copies, forgeries and deception as standard acceptable business practice.
And we're definitely not exempt, here in the Cryptosphere! Everywhere we look, someone is pandering to the illusion "If you give me $1,000 today, I'll give you back $10,000 next week!"
And people buy into that idea and take out 2nd mortgages on their houses to "buy in."
And, speaking of houses, more and more people have come to expect that their property values will go up 10-15% every year! Like they are OWED that sort of return on their investment. And houses often aren't even "HOMES" anymore, but just another asset you trade in pursuit of accumulating ever more money.
Which still isn't enough to buy what you want or need to survive in life!
Life as "Junk Bonds"
Makes me think back to the world of "junk bonds" from the early 1980s, where people would throw their hard-earned money at sketchy securities that paid 12-15% interest, and sometimes even 20%!
Sometimes it feels almost as if all of life has become the relentless pursuit of junk bond yields!
Somehow, everybody turns a blond eye to the reality that it's all a zero-sum game: Every time somebody gains, somebody else loses. The junk bond chasers of the early 80's lost their worlds when the Savings and Loans crisis hit.
The Emperor's New Clothes, Redux...
It's easy — and often very tempting — to get caught up in all the hype and excitement! But there also comes a point where reality sets in... whether that's discovering that your "surefire" crypto investment just experienced a rugpull, or the "cheap stamps" for your Christmas cards are are basically worthless (and illegal!) wallpaper, or the "rare" old stamps you bought to save as part of investing for your retirement are barely enough to buy a Big Mac for dinner.
Don't get me wrong, I love being part of the crypto frontier, and collectibles markets and more... but, at the same time, I am also someone who will stand up and point out — often while being booed! — that the proverbial "emperor" isn't wearing any clothes, and your priceless pet project is nothing but a flimsy house of cards.
And simply pretending that we are creating a new paradigm isn't going to alter the fact that your electricity is going to get cut off next week if you don't take action and pay it with actual money!
And no, I'm not interested in destroying anyone's dreams... I'm just interested in injecting some reality and accountability into those dreams... so they might actually still be around, in 10 years from now!
Thanks for visiting and having a look at my blog, and till the next one!