John Carmack’s idea for stopping scalpers: a producer-run auction system

John Carmack, founder of Id Software today involved in Facebook’s Oculus project, has let himself go to some comments on the phenomenon of scalpers, as well as the latest evolution in the video card industry, namely Nvidia’s choice to insert a “limiter” against mining on the upcoming RTX 3060 and launch the new line of CMP cards specifically for the cryptocurrency mining audience.

According to the historical video game developer, he has tweeted her thoughts to the world, a auction system managed directly by the companies for popular products such as GPU, PS5 and Xbox Series X could solve (or mitigate) the current situation that sees the so-called scalpers, touts, buying the most desired technology of the moment in bulk (by means of automatic bots) with the aim of creating scarcity and profit from resale.

“Given the shortages and speculators about products like the RTX 3090 GPU and the new console, it looks like we would be really better off. with a transparent auction system managed directly by the producers and a more efficient market. “On the one hand, Carmack is right: auctions would make technology products less attractive to scalpers, as the higher the auction rises, the lower the possible gain on resale. At the same time, however, some consumers would find themselves spending more, while others would spend less.

In short, it would be a system to be thought out and devised with some care and by putting a few stakes here and there. However, we know that the auction system is not exempt from possibilities “magheggi” able to undermine the mechanism, not to mention that in any case the issue of products sold at high prices would not be canceled, it would simply shift the income from the scalpers to the producers, without really eradicating the problem. The auctions could then become a “gambling for the rich only“, leaving those who cannot afford to participate in a dry mouth.

Manufacturers could then have serious problems with retailers (and perhaps even with some authority) and the system could only work if all companies adopted it. It should also be added that producers make use of certain sales channels that they do not manage directly because it would be complicated, if not impossible, to take on the entire process that follows a purchase.

In short, in plain language it seems to us something impractical. At the moment, some retailers have put in place queuing systems and quota purchases, but not all do and many scalpers manage to bypass the countermeasures anyway. We will see if there will be any news also in this respect.

Read also: PS5 and video card scalpers don’t understand why they are hated by people

Carmack, infine, he has commented Nvidia’s choice to “castrate” the RTX 3060 making it less attractive to Ethereum miners. “What a terrible engineering task to give someone,” he wrote, pointing out that it is bad to “break” something where a product performs well. “If the CMP cards are priced similarly (to the GeForces, ed) it will be a good addition, but I suspect not,” he concluded.