iPhone Scalping - What?
So while getting ready to leave my house this morning and having a cup of coffee I had the local Dallas Fox News broadcast on. As you might imagine the new Apple iPhone was a huge topic of discussion. As a local station the focus instead of the technology was the people (idiots in my opinion) who were camping out in the rain to wait in line and buy an iPhone.
Now this is where it got interesting, the reporter was on site at a store with about 100 odd folks in line waiting, so being a bit smarter then the average news drone he proceeded to start talking to people in line and did a quick poll of the entire group, as it turned out only 8 people were there to buy a phone for themselves.
The rest were "scalpers", now this is not like the typical ticket scalping these folks were hired guns most were paid on average 100 bucks by someone that wanted an iPhone but did not want to stand in line. As it turns out it seems people that have the money to drop 6 bills to have one of the first iPhones also have lives and decided in mass to outsource the task.
Now as you might imagine I would never stand in a cold line to buy any gadget, see a movie, etc. I like most people am sane and have a brain, I know that the price is going to fall and in just a few weeks you won't be able to walk across the street and not trip on an iPhone. Star Wars Episode III was just as good when I saw it in its' second week as when the camp out morons saw it on the first day. I have never understood the fanatical response that makes people stand in line for stuff like this. A concert or event that can "sell out", again I won't do it but I do get it, I understand but to be the first to buy a commodity, well, not this cat.
Yet seeing this story made me thing back two decades to when I was a teen age kid with no money. Would I have stood in the rain from for a day to buy an iPhone for a guy who paid me 100 bucks to do it? You bet I would have, that would have been good money to stand around at a time when I was killing myself to make 5 bucks an hour (minimum wage was $3.15 back then). In short if you stood in line to part with 600 dollars to be the first to have an iPhone I think you are a total DOLT! However, if you are some young kid that suckered 100 plus dollars out of a dolt to lazy to stand in the line himself, I say good for you, keep it up and find as many dolts as you can before the opportunity ends.
One thing this made me wonder about though was how people would activate the iPhone, again Fox News has the answer. Apparently you buy the phone, take it home and then you have to sign up for iTunes and active it online at a special web site with an AT&T wireless contract (minimum two years of course). You can get the full details from the Fox Story Here.
So if you want to see a smart business people today look no further then you closest teenager, 100 bucks for a few hours in line to pay a premium for something that will drop in price and be available everywhere in just a few weeks. It is stuff like this that really tells me the future of business is in good hands, great job kids, stick it to the man!
~ Jack
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