I run up the prices in less competitive auctions just for fun occasionally, especially if I think someone is getting too good a deal.

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gond 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Question: what kind of fun you are referring to here?

Since, from the outside, it surely sounds like you get pleasure by inflicting some form of suffering on others. But that hopefully isn’t considered fun, is it?

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Dylan16807 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The price, when between the seller's minimum and the buyer's maximum, is a zero sum game. So while this is definitely screwing with people, the seller gets paid more and the amount of suffering in the world shouldn't really change.

	▲	gond 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You are falling for the zero-sum fallacy and mixing categories on top of it. Globally, wealth gets created, which leads to a positive-sum game, not a zero sum game. On the other hand, if one quadrillionaire in a city owns all the money available in that said system except 100 currency units, the remaining 100 humans are in possession of exactly 1 currency unit. The suffering for the 100 humans is significantly higher for the 100 than for the one, even though it fulfils your premise of a balanced global suffering index. Before the trade, the value for the seller and the buyer was zero. Whatever the trade involved, the moment the minimum of the seller gets hit, it becomes a positive-sum game. If this would not be the case long-term rise of stocks would be impossible. That would mean a stock rise is a redistribution and you take it away from someone else . So, if the stock market were truly zero-sum, every currency unit earned would require someone else to have lost one.

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muvlon 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think this is inflicting net suffering, really. The money doesn't just disappear, the seller gets it. Auctions are zero-sum.

	▲	Retr0id 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They're not zero-sum on ebay because ebay takes a percentage cut

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pharrington 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You are not fun.

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catlikesshrimp 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you usually pay for the higher price you are offering?

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Analemma_ 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, dick move, but that has nothing to do with sniping. You could do that at any point during the auction and it would have the same effect.

	▲	ab5tract 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sniping means that bidders may have decided to put in a higher ceiling in order to avoid losing at the last second. If there was never a worry about this, they could bring out (and decide) that ceiling only after being outbid.