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Comment by davidmathers | Hacker News Reader

Jeff Atwood is wrong on the internet... again! Tell me you're surprised. There are too many mistakes in the post to bother correcting. Just read the anandtech.com article if you want accurate info.

For accurate price info you should know that the second generation 160 GB X-25Ms originally listed for $450 but shot up in price due to excessive demand. It's only in stock at stores that price gouge and MIA everywhere else. Amazon, not price-gouging, has the 80 GB for $260 and the kit version of the 160 GB for $500.

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The term "price gouge" is counterproductively pejorative. Being able to get it for some price is an improvement over not being able to get it at all, which, as you point out, is the alternative.

Ok, so what idiom should I use instead? I can't think of anything.

Is this the market-economics version of political correctness?

Equilibrium price. The retail price is lower than the market value, which is why it's not available anywhere else. The other stores have chosen their price based on the demand and their available supply.

Just say the price went up due to unexpectedly high demand. It's hardly "gouging" you if the only way people can keep it in stock is to raise the price.

Just say the price went up due to unexpectedly high demand.

I did say that. The issue is that I need 2 names: a name for the stores charging $450 (and are out of stock) and another name for the stores charging $600+.

I chose "gouging" and "non-gouging". Concise, and everyone who read it understood what I meant to say. I'm not seeing any real alternatives being offered, except to replace clear, concise, universally understood words with tedious explanations.

> I chose "gouging" and "non-gouging".

Why the nice name for a supplier who doesn't, you know, supply?

Discount camera stores are infamous for advertising things at great prices to get you in the store but being out of stock. It's a crappy way to do biz and should have a crappy name; "non-gouging" doesn't qualify.

Why the nice name for a supplier who doesn't, you know, supply?

Again with the criticize-without-offering-alternative.

Right, that's called bait and switch. No relation to price gouging.

> Right, that's called bait and switch. No relation to price gouging.

Actually, I didn't describe bait and switch. And, even if I did, the question isn't whether that bad behavior has any relationship to price-gouging, the question is whether suppliers who engage in crappy behavior should be given good labels.

Suppliers who advertise at prices and don't come through are crappy, regardless of what they do after not coming through. Calling them "non-gouging" is inappropriate.

what idiom should I use

Others are replying, but I don't know that there's any idiom needed. Raising the price to whatever people willingly pay is just being a merchant.

Is this the market-economics version of political correctness?

I don't think it is. Political correctness applies when people feel they can't plainly say something that's true. In this case, using "price gouging" adds nothing to the statement that prices are high except a sense of outrage, and my response was merely that I think the outrage is misplaced.

using "price gouging" adds nothing to the statement that prices are high except a sense of outrage

Of course it does. It says:

1. the subject is a retail product with a standard price, as opposed to a market product where the price is determined by bids and asks.

2. the price is temporarily higher than the standard price due to some sort of unforeseen disruption.

3. the price will return to the standard price when circumstances return to normal.

In the present example the product that Jeff says costs $600 will cost $450 within 3 months. Just as it cost $450 for a brief moment 1.5 months ago.

Edit: Also, you are speaking for yourself about the outrage. I certainly don't have any outrage. Not does "price gouging" give me any sense of outrage.

The people who are outraged by the practice will be outraged by it no matter what you call it. And people, like myself, who have no problem with it will have no problem with it no matter what you call it.

Not to get into a prescriptivism debate but "Price gouging" has a specific meaning, not just "charging a lot of money":

> Price gouging is a term for a seller pricing much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

> pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available

Not to get into a prescriptivism debate but "Price gouging" has a specific meaning, not just "charging a lot of money"

That's my point, actually.

Price gouging is a term for a seller pricing much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

I'm only interested in the non-value-judgement related meaning. "Reasonable" and "fair" are meaningless.

What other people are saying is "you can't use that word because it's loaded with value judgement." I'm saying "OK, give me an alternative that captures the meaning without the value judgement. And is concise, clear, expressive, and widely understood."

pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available

This, also, is meaningless.

I don't understand your assertion that the second definition is meaningless. Charging the market price is by the given definition not price gouging.

Scarcity may be the term you're looking for.

It's meaningless because if you're the only provider your price is by definition the market price. Market price means the price on the market, not the price in a hypothetical fair competitive market.

I see. It still doesn't fit the scenario of SSDs as there isn't a single retailer.

'Gouging' is an epithet used by those who abhor the practice; that's the source of the confusion. It means more than "more than usual" or "temporarily more than MSRP"; it specifically means unfair. 'Gouging' is even a legal term, for a practice illegal in some circumstances and jurisdictions.

So by using the term, you've added confusion, including the need for your extra verbiage, to the effect of "...not that there's anything wrong with it!"

(I also think you're giving way too much weight to MSRP. Actual prices to the consumer always vary, even without a bid/ask 'market'. The MSRP -- as a coordination mechanism among producers and retailers used to loosely enforce pricing discipline -- is arguably a more-unfair practice than this market-clearing 'gouging'. So you're using a mildly-disapproving term, 'gouging', for the praiseworthy practice of maintaining a sellable inventory, and an mildly-approving term, 'standard', for a potentially-unfair collusive practice. The connotations of your chosen language are backwards!)

The phrase you're looking for is "market clearing price" or just "market price".

See also Obama's elementary explanation of why lowering gas taxes doesn't lower gas prices when gas is in limited supply: the market clearing price is still the price at which the amount of gas that people want at that price equals the supply of gas. Setting the price lower than this will result in shortages. It doesn't matter whether gas taxes go down.

"Price-gouging" really is a terrible phrase for what you do in a supply-bound market. The people who raised prices have drives if you want one, and if nobody wants one, they lose their bet - have unsold inventory. The people who set lower prices sold out their inventory, but now they don't have drives if you want one, which isn't exactly a favor to you either. There are four methods of allocating resources and the method that our hunter-gatherer brains don't understand is market prices, so people think it is "unfair".

The phrase you're looking for is "market clearing price" or just "market price".

Those are definitely not the phrases I'm looking for. They don't contain enough information. I hope I can unwrap this without being too confusing.

First, you're preaching to the choir here. I'm pro-market-prices. I don't think there's anything unfair about the practice of price gouging. I support it 100%.

The issue here is you, and the others, aren't playing Gordon Gekko: "Gouging is good". You're playing Margaret "society doesn't exist" Thatcher: "When supply is constrained then prices go up. That's just the market at work. There isn't even such a thing a price gouging. Stop hallucinating."

Do I really need to spell out why and how it's different than a market-fluctuation? I got into it a little bit in a neighboring message, but I didn't go into the manufacturer/retailer dynamic. I think just the fact that it makes so many people irrationally angry is evidence enough that there's something unique about it.

Thought experiment: if gas prices doubled overnight would anyone get upset at gas station owners? Exactly. That's why it's not price gouging.

All I'm doing is defending the concept's existence and saying that because it exists I need a way to refer to it. If "gouging" is too pejorative then give me another word that actually captures all the relevant non-value-judgement-related meaning and is not just a sleight of hand attempt to pretend there's no there there. Because there is.

Thought experiment: if gas prices doubled overnight would anyone get upset at gas station owners? Exactly. That's why it's not price gouging.

Something's not price gouging when people get upset? Or maybe you weren't paying any attention to sentiment when gas prices were soaring a few years back? People hated gas station owners, and there certainly were accusations of "gouging".

and there certainly were accusations of "gouging"

That was a bad example. But those accusations were obviously made by idiots.

My point was that if the manufacturer doubles the price no one gets mad at the retailer. Except idiots.

America could buy a greater share of the global supply of oil, if it could pay more off the retail price on the world market instead of giving it to the government. (And over time supply might go up with higher prices.)

There are too many mistakes in the post to bother correcting.

For those of us not as current on SSDs as you are, actually correcting his mistakes might be useful.

I learned everything I know from Anand:

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

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