Holy fuck, not everything in this life needs to be profit maximized.

Ticketmaster does something very similar to this with their "demand weighted pricing" and it is just so sad that their solution to "scalping" is "let's bring that profit into our platform."

You can get away from supply/demand laws. By pretending that something is not giverned by them and putting fixed price lower than real price (i.e. that price at which suppl equals demand) one leaves space for scalpers to exist and collect money that people are willing to spend over set price.

Given that people are going to spend money anyway it seems more honest and reasonable to direct this money to the party that makes the thing by letting it to run auction.

I don't see it really as profit maximising, just allocating it first to the people who want it the most. Like they are willing to pay scalpers.

You can get it at the lower price, you just have to wait. The same happens with loads of digital devices. On release day the price is higher.

If it helps you can separate it and have the first a 'ticket' in line to buy the product for the regular price. You just reserve your spot with the auction. The queue price just drops over time.

It's not really about money or profit.

Society has found out money is a good way to encourage/discourage certain behavior in a predictable, deterministic, and quantifiable way. It really sucks that it has to be money, and maybe this can be solved with some other universal token that cannot be bought with wealth but equitably distributed some other way.

For example the dynamic fees in express lanes in California aren't really for the purposes of paying for the roads. They dynamically adjust it such that the traffic in the lane is operating at peak efficiency. Too few people using it obviously reduces throughput, so the price cheapens to have people using it, and too many people using it causes a collapse in efficiency so the price increases. Having some kind of adjustable cost on it lets the control system appropriately change the demand to keep it efficient.

Profit and premium models can be great if it's allocated to useful things. For example if it went as bonuses to the rank and file employees, or was as steam store credit, or went to a charity.

I get your cynicism it would just go to billionaire shareholders, but profit itself isnt the enemy, greed is.