Adafruit isn't "rationing scarce resources", they're trying to provide good service to their customers. Adafruit is an actor in a "free market" acting in their best interest.
My issue was with the comment somehow suggesting the entire system (Big Bad Market) is somehow less wise than an individual actor.
Yet, the entire system contains much more information, that the individual actor does not, and can never have access to, e.g. value judgements of other market participants he will never meet.
Markets, at the core, are just auctions. It's one way to resolve the question who gets the scarce resource first. At other times, it's medical triage, a system very different from "free markets". It can also be first-come, first-serve, which is what currently being attempted by Adafruit now.
Many such options. Why is "free market" judged to be inappropriate here?
From my experience in markets with severe shortages, first-come/first-serve rationing approach never failed to produce a poor supply, and free floating markets were always oversupplied (to a varying extent, but in general there was a trend).
The base Raspberry Pi model is supposed to cost $35, because the Raspberry Pi Foundation has decided that offering a low cost SBC is important for the world.
Using a bot to buy up all inventory so you can resell it at $50 or $100 or whatever is unethical. You have provided no added value; you are just a parasite scalping others for your own enrichment.
If this is what a "free market" is, as many people here seem to think, then free markets are objectively bad for the commons.
But it's not a free market! Adafruit (etc.) are only allowed to sell at particular price points, or the RPi Foundation will stop giving them inventory to sell. You can argue that is a free market, since Adafruit and the Foundation have voluntarily entered into a mutually-beneficial contract.
But then we also have to accept that Adafruit is well within their rights to impose restrictions on how the product is bought, in an effort to ensure the products get into the hands of the people they want it to, at the (lower) price point they want.
All Adafruit is doing is putting up a big "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" sign whenever an ordering bot shows up, which is completely up to them to do if they want.
The market is credit card sized arm based computers, not raspberry pi. If you narrow things too much then you can make anything not a market. Wal-Mart has a monopoly on apples if you narrow the market to inside their store.
I understood your comment just fine, I just don't agree. Either way,as I commented earlier it's not the essence here so I see no point in further debating this particular point.
There has never been an actual shortage of toilet paper or disinfectant during the pandemic, the production-side supply has always been enough to satisfy the demand - the "shortage" was only because people hoarded up and/or tried to profit by re-selling loo rolls on eBay [1].
[1] https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/ebay-toilet-...