
28-year-old makes millions buying from Walmart, selling on Amazon - kolbe
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/28-year-old-makes-millions-buying-from-walmart-selling-on-amazon/ar-AAupB8i
======
sytelus
He is doing $200K/mo. Assuming average sell price is $50, that would require
shipping one item every 12 minutes assuming he never sleeps and works all of
the 365 days. Just think about someone needs to stroll around Walmart and find
all these 4000 items each month chosen meticulously, buy them, store them,
package them and ship them. Then there is a classic and dreaded inventory
problem. The items you bought from Walmart has no guarantee that they will get
sold by same day, week or even a month. It's not hard to imagine that you will
need 2X inventory and many of these items _may_ go unsold in long tail easily
wiping out significant profits. In fact odds are squarely not on his side
because he is specifically buying items from clearance which probably means
that Walmart had good confidence and insights that those items won't get sold
easily. Remember that massive sales and trend data available to Walmart is not
available to this guy so he needs to be extraordinarily lucky 4000 times a
month or just plain genius.

So I see lot of problems in claims being made. Unfortunately this reporting
smells more like advertising and mostly link bait as opposed to investigative
journalism with evidence and good data source. It is likely that on can find
blindspots from inefficiencies in some nitche and make small profits but doing
this at scale seems highly unlikely. I'm more on cautious side because
Internet is littered with videos of people like this making claims of how
anyone can millions by doing this and that. Usually that video is prelude to
something they want to sell like books or self-help course or just get free
publicity to boost their prospects.

~~~
owens99
> that would require shipping one item every 12 minutes assuming he never
> sleeps and works all of the 365 days

He uses Fulfillment by Amazon, meaning after he buys the products he just
ships them all to Amazon and Amazon will ship them to the customers when the
orders go through. That saves 90% of the time required to operate a business
like this. All he has to do is find and buy products where he can make a
margin significant enough, send them to Amazon and list them in his store.

------
wpietri
Good for him, but I really wish for a better class of business journalism.
He's been doing this 4 years, and never made more than $150k/year. So he
definitely isn't somebody who "makes millions".

~~~
forkLding
The article might be exaggerating but it did state that he had 'millions in
profits' at first paragraph.

Salary is a different matter, CEOs of new companies dont earn from annual
revenue but more from stock sales and gains.

Paying 150k is also before taxing and profits and is an expense in wages.

Taking a quick guess and say that this person has 1 million in profits, but
most likely 1 million to 2 million in gross profits instead of net from what I
can think is more likely and 150k in his salary as well as wages for 11 people
and warehouse rent which likely reaches 700k to 1 million, he likely has
around 3 to 3.5 million in revenue and net profits of likely 50k as thats your
average web retailer net margin

~~~
tyingq
He also says he's doing $200k/month in one spot, then $8M/year in another.
Smells funny.

~~~
giarc
They are currently doing $200k in sales but "Since he started selling on
Amazon, Grant says the business is on track to top $8 million in total sales
by the end of this year."

$8 million is sales since starting.

~~~
tyingq
The math still doesn't work. He's been at it 4 years, and he notes that it
wasn't huge the first year.

~~~
giarc
He's doing $200k in sales per month now.... Black Friday and Christmas are
just around the corner and are probably 80% of their business (just my guess).
Either way retail sales are not linear.

------
LilBytes
My friend does exactly this between IKEA and Ebay.

Here in Australia, IKEA does not ship (not sure if they do else where) so she
buys a heap of items at the Ikea stores and flips them online. She's been
doing it for years and does pretty well at it.

Here in Australia, IKEA stores are few and far between so her arbitrage is a
huge value add for a lot of her customers since IKEA cannot (won't?) ship and
traveling X KM's to pickup an item isn't an option for most. Personally, I'd
rather buy X item from another retailer that has a product similar to the Ikea
equivalent rather than use a middle man but. People really want to buy IKEA
goods rather than the alternative.

I can't see how this gentleman's equivalent will stand up in the long run but
till then since Walmart's goods are less unique and more importantly, much
more accessible. But still he's exploiting an OK market for now.

The self help angle he's now peddling makes me suspicious that his income
hasn't scaled as well as he would like now his business has grown.

He's now got 11 employee's and a much larger footprint. His business overheads
would have significantly increased and dropping from $150k to $60k a year for
his salary would indicate his business Net has either diminished or hasn't
grown as expected.

Hence, peddling self help to generate additional income and exposure for his
business.

~~~
cc439
I used to think IKEA was insane for running such a "20th Century" business
model for shipping their products. The fact that you cannot purchase anything
from IKEA's website and have it delivered without incurring a $129 delivery
fee is crazy when taken at face value.

However, I've come to understand why they have limited their delivery service.
Their flat pack products are their profit centers and the packaging that makes
them so efficient to store in their storefront warehouses is simply not suited
for shipping via 3rd parties (UPS, FedEx, etc). As an extreme example,
consider their cardboard honeycomb + laminate furniture (the Hemnes stuff). It
takes almost nothing to punch through the flat surfaces of those products if
the force is concentrated on a small area and the box offers zero protection
(padding) to prevent this. Even the higher end products are packaged as
tightly as possible with sensitive surfaces directly touching the box they're
packed in. While it's insane to charge $129 for get a pack of their
excellently priced "ancillary" products shipped (kitchen utensils, cheap LED
lightbulbs), those products are priced desirably in order to get you in the
store. If IKEA sold those online with a modern shipping model, they'd forgo
the chance of getting you to buy something that is actually profitable. IKEA
can't redesign the packaging for their flat pack products without impacting
the efficiency of their in-store inventory and they can't ship their existing
packages without ironclad damage-free guarantees from the big logistics
companies.

Even if they get a guarantee that the logistics company eats the cost of any
damaged good, it would still negatively impact customer satisfaction when, for
example, the bed they ordered for their new house shows up damaged and needs
to be returned/reordered. Every time I've bought IKEA furniture, it's been for
an immediate need, and I'm not going to be happy when I have nowhere to sit
for 2-5 days because UPS crushed my package.

~~~
itronitron
That sounds about right, and I doubt that their warehouse people are fully
equipped to package IKEA goods properly for shipping. When I have had orders
shipped from IKEA online they have typically been poorly packaged, with pieces
close to falling out of the boxes.

------
dsacco
This is cool. It reminds me of another three person team I’m familiar with
that works on Amazon Prime arbitrage full time. They have a warehouse and an
employee responsible for overseeing shipments in and shipments out. The entire
business revolves around algorithmically identifying non-Prime merchandise
that is undersold because it lacks the Prime label, purchasing the inventory,
then reselling it under the Prime label with delivery and tracking guarantees.

They found out pretty quickly that many customers preferentially buy Prime
listed items over non-Prime items, and specifically purchase items they can
quickly resell for a profit.

~~~
MichaelApproved
How do they identify those products?

~~~
kennethologist
Most likely using Amazon Product Advertising API
[http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/CHA...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/CHAP_ApiReference.html)

------
binarysolo
Parts of this are legit, but google "retail arbitrage amazon" to see a bunch
of the strategies and pain points people run into. There's a reason this guy
is selling seminars instead of just scaling what he does.

Long story short - for clearanced items, Amazon's new gating policy is making
it more and more difficult to grey market (legit, new, but not manufacturer
authorized) products. Amazon's set up a system for vendors to police their
excess, and they keep internal metrics on how many items are being sold
through third party vendors... and once that number/dollar is high enough,
they outreach to the vendors themselves and do a sales pitch so vendors can be
active on their platform.

For new items being arbitraged by a third party between like this
Walmart->Amazon thing, Amazon basically sits on the sideline until the product
accumulates enough sales, then outreaches to the vendor themselves. Basically
the arbitrageur is doing market discovery for Amazon, and at the point where
it's a particularly profitable item Amazon does their bizdev direct with the
manufacturer to bring efficiency into their own marketplace. Really clever and
virtuous system, to be honest.

Most arbitrageurs now go for the private label option (buy unbranded items and
rebrand with their own trademark) to avoid this, but once their product is
popular enough to warrant it, Amazon responds by having their buyers clone an
AmazonBasics version of them item. (See prior discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533973))

------
speby
There are definitely quite a few people out there doing this. This guy is
neither the first nor the last to be doing this type of product channel
arbitrage. There is an acquaintance of mine who lives no more than 8 minutes
from me who does this as a side-job and it brings him in an extra couple
hundred to a couple grand a month. He obviously spends time as shown in this
video going to WalMart, buying certain items, and then listing those items as
being for sale through Amazon. His margin takes a slight hit sometimes when
uses Amazon Fulfillment services to keep the item in Amazon's stock but he
also spends time shipping items from his own basement. I imagine his fingers
get a bit dry and cracked after handling so many cardboard boxes after awhile.

Additionally, he does use price tracking and discovery tools to try and find
the deals with bigger amounts of arbitrage between Amazon and WalMart. Because
pricing is so dynamic and changing all the time, occasionally an item just
barely breaks even as Amazon will sometimes magically update prices for its
own goods to match or beat what might have been available at WalMart in their
store. But it all depends and varies a lot.

------
robertkrahn01
Interestingly enough it seems that public mentions of this don't destroy
business. Here is a Planet Money podcast from 2015
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episode-629-buy-
low-sell-prime). I thought at this time the days for arbitrage like this would
be counted. Apparently not.

~~~
bayesian_horse
The exploitation of the strategy can be limited by two factors: "labor" and
"capital". It sounds like labor is the more limiting factor, though.

Also, some of these prices aren't set at maximum profit per item, but there
are other factors involved. For example clearing warehouses or attracting
customers.

In many cases, I suppose Walmart should be coming up with a way to sell direct
to Amazon, but that may not be what they want, strategically speaking.

~~~
seanalltogether
I wonder if Walmart simply can't afford to play arbitrage with clearance stock
at the size of their organization. The amount of manpower and shipping time
they would have to add to localized stock management might end up eating away
at any additional profits.

From their perspective Ryan is probably helping them out by emptying their
clearance stock faster. If the local manager was smart he'd keep his number on
speed dial.

~~~
koancone
My experience, from shopping in Walmart quite frequently, is that they are
highly disorganized and un-nimble. I guess this affords the opportunity for
persistent arbitrages. For example, my local Walmart supercenter routinely
runs out of certain products (not usually the same products). Sometimes it
feels like GUM (An iconic USSR department store in Moscow). I gone shopping
and found them missing any kind nutcracker ( a basic utensil), grapefruit
juice, landscaping mulch, etc (many more examples). At the beginning of August
the garden center had already moved out all its mulch for the year and filled
the shelves with de-icing salt lol. The people who run the place do not seem
to understand opportunity costs: they lost a sale in me and I am pretty sure
nearly no-one is buying de-icing salt at the beginning of August. This is a
northern USA store but where I live the weather is in the 60-70 through
October: grass still grows, gardens still can be mulched. The stores are
overstaffed with floor people (seemingly wandering around Lord of the Flies
style) but not only 3-4 of 20 checkout lanes are open at a given time. Nearly
every single canned good is dented or has a dirty lid. Their self checkout POS
run on Windows 7 (lol) and update firmware automatically when they reboot
which is hardly ever but for a power outage. If there are intermittent power
outages in a storm a POS could reboot on the first outage and be bricked on
the second one while updating firmware. There are so many opportunities for
improvement with Walmart but the capital cost of a competitor entering the
industry is so high. I am not sure if Amazon can be a real competitor (I think
they largely serve different sets of customers).

------
joering2
Back few years ago I was able to make extra $10,000 on Amazon by selling $200
packs of $2 for around $240 + shipping, because everyone thinks they are
super-unique. Meanwhile a mere trip to a bank is required with request for a
"$200 BRICK". I takes about 10 business days for BEP to ship it to your bank
and you can order multiple times, no problem. My best month was December of
course with I believe $18,000 in one month because everyone want to have a
pack to give out as a x-mas gift. The work took my friend that I outsources
about 3 hours a day. I only checked on her on the weekend and if she has any
issues (merely). I remember how upset she was at me cause she knew the
business but she couldn't afford to get Bricks from Bank herself.

Eventually Amazon banned me for selling currency instruments, but it least 10
months.

~~~
tyingq
That you Woz?

------
thecollate
I am surprised that there is so much margin. Is this because:

1\. Amazon product delivery is so convenient that users don't mind paying
little extra or

2\. Walmart discounts products valuing their warehouse space more. Thus not
realizing there was demand for the product elsewhere or at a different time.

Seems like it would be simple for Walmart to figure out this arbitrage and
shelve products for longer time. Any thoughts ?

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Exactly both - this is a temporary sort of arbitrage but is great for both
these entrepreneurs and the end consumer in the short term. I will be
surprised if they survive in the long term, since most of their business model
is designed around the lack of Walmart and Amazon talking to each other. I
think it would take a relatively simple collaboration between the two (though
that might never happen) to completely destroy this business.

~~~
maxerickson
Or Walmart could just dump the stuff back into their own fulfillment system.

I doubt it amounts to enough merchandise for them to care about though,
regardless of the margin. They make money on low costs and volume.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Indeed, which is why it has probably skated under the radar for this long. I
imagine this company’s success will eventually be its downfall in that the
second when Walmart and Amazon see how much money is being made over this kind
of arbitrage and that kind of money becomes significant they will quash it
like a fly on the wall.

------
kpwagner
Many brands are "gating" their products on Amazon so only select resellers can
sell them on Amazon. For example, the article mentions LEGO--restricted. You
need to show Amazon proof that you purchased your products from a credible
distributor in order to list your LEGO products. Receipts from Walmart are not
enough.

~~~
astura
Lego is gated? Since when? I sell Lego on Amazon. It's been a few months since
I sold any though.

~~~
kpwagner
Huh. That's curious. Maybe you got grandfathered in. It's definitely
restricted for new sellers. Anything Disney, which it turns out is a lot of
stuff these days, is all restricted too.

------
Lordarminius
Title should read: 28 year old used to make millions buying from Walmart,
selling on Amazon; because he certainly will have to live with competition and
reduced margins from now on.

~~~
morganvachon
Not really. The company I work for has a similar setup; we bid on wholesale
lots from the same places that Big Lots and other wholesale-to-retail outfits
buy from. We flip those items both in our storefront and on eBay and Amazon.
We don't do FBA but that's because we have a huge warehouse and competent
shipping staff at our disposal. We clear enough for 10 competitive salaries
and a comfortable income for the owners, and the rest is reinvested into the
company.

The company has been around for nearly 20 years (I've been with them off and
on for seven of those years), and was one of the earliest online closeouts
retailers back in the 90s. This is nothing new.

~~~
bob_theslob646
Lol, good luck is all I have to say to you. Invest well=)

If you honestly think this is sustainable, you are mistaken.

You are lucky to have done well all these years, but as more people get
smarter, bye bye margins.( Same thing in every business.)

More and more people will get into this space.

Sure, you may be able to survive because you geta volume discount on shipping,
but that's all dependent on you sourcing the product that these new people
will be doing because all it takes is a smartphone and dream....

~~~
morganvachon
People buying random clearance items from Walmart to sell on Amazon has zero
impact on our business. We buy wholesale lots for thousands of dollars at a
time, stock them in a huge warehouse, and employ a team of workers to sort,
evaluate, list, and ship the items. A single person working from their
basement can't even touch that.

It's been sustainable for the nearly 20 years the owners have been doing it,
and the rise of Amazon and eBay has caused an explosion of growth over the
majority of that time.

As for myself, my role there is multifaceted (mainly IT and website
management, and helping out everywhere else as needed). I'm paid better than I
was in government work, and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

------
Jagat
I recently bought something from eBay (didn't search on amazon for some odd
reason), and I received it from Amazon. Turns out the seller has an Amazon
prime account, and all he does is provide the ebay-buyer's address on
checkout.

He netted $2 on a $12 product, and I found it amusing.

~~~
bdcravens
That’s a common thing, but amazon soon cancels the prime account for TOS
violations. (Google “amazon to eBay arbitrage”)

------
Scoundreller
I do a similar thing on Ebay:

Canada Post has been taking 5 or 6 weeks to deliver items from China that are
shipped with free shipping.

So, I'll buy 10x what I need from China when I need a part, then sell the rest
on Ebay. Paying attention to things that I can ship cheaply (i.e. < 2cm thick)

Lots of buyer will pay extra to get their spare part in 3-5 days instead of
3-5 weeks.

Christmas time will be especially good to me :)

~~~
AWebOfBrown
Do you not worry about unfit-for-sale goods? Getting a replacement means
waiting those 5-6 weeks and often incurs return expense. Unless your margin is
high enough that you can afford to buy extras for that purpose?

------
nathan_f77
Nice to know that 28 is still considered a noteworthy age for things like
this. It must be getting pretty close to the cutoff though. You don't often
hear titles like "32 year old creates successful business"

~~~
tyingq
Maybe the older ones keep their ideas to themselves?

~~~
nathan_f77
Haha yes, that could also be true. It doesn't seem like a great idea to share
your formula and encourage lots of other people to start doing it.

~~~
astura
There's practically unlimited money to be made in the "I'll teach you to be
rich" industry. It's much less work and much more lucrative than retail
arbitrage.

------
richardpetersen
Is it possible this is just a bit of PR spin by Wallmart to position
themselves as being cheaper than Amazon or have I been working in marketing
for too long?

~~~
mabbo
More likely a PR piece by Amazon- hey, go do sale arbitrage for us and we can
both make money.

Remember, FBA charges you money to use it beyond the cut Amazon seller already
pay to sell in the platform.

(Neat thing: a friend of mine was one of the devs on the Amazon FBA seller app
that lets you scan barcodes at other stores and see how much you'll make
selling it on Amazon)

------
lbotos
I'm wondering if he's working with Gary V? The other day a friend shared one
of his "hustle" videos on Social Media where Gary is hawking this and I'm
wondering if it was actually "embedded marketing" for this guy.

------
Blazespinnaker
Very hard to believe, you'd have to be very naive to reveal your arbitrage
like this.

~~~
cJ0th
It seems he is already moving on by entering the self help/motivational
speaker industry.

> As his business is increasingly run by his team, Grant has reduced his
> salary down to $60,000 a year and now dedicates much of his time to getting
> that message out. He consults and teaches e-commerce classes through the
> same blog he has been using to track his performance.

~~~
cjensen
In other words, his business isn't working out very well and he has a lot of
inventory risk. So he's "pivoting" to self-help.

~~~
interestingcpp
It may have been working fine, and he simply chose to pivot careers rather
than scale what he had.

------
mattmurdog
This is just a feel good story, I don't know why people analyzing it to death.
He's basically no different than ab ebay power seller. But instead of buying
wholesale, he buys clearance items.

------
rootsudo
I did the numbers on some items, ikea on Amazon has a 50-75% margin increase
on home/kitchen items.

------
haglin
Problem is, I don't want to work with repacking stuff, or managing others
repacking stuff.

I want to build amazing software, and for that I need a larger company who can
market my inventions and talk about it on conferences and road shows.

I will earn less, but I will be happy.

~~~
seppin
I don't think this story is about you.

------
joelrunyon
Very curious on his profit margins here.

Considering an even 10% markup, you could easily do $5M+ and only clear 500k
profit. Curious what the numbers that matter are like.

------
sjg007
There's a pure software arbitrage play as well, take for example, simple green
which you can't buy from amazon direct but you can from a 3rd party reseller
which ends up being a direct arbitrage from walmart.com.

------
bhouston
He shouldn't share this arbitrage strategy because if others do it, its
profitability will decrease -- like all arbitrage strategies.

~~~
dmurray
He shouldn't share it so long as it's more profitable than what he can get
paid to share it by running seminars, selling e-books, minus expenses such as
getting this article "published". There's not much in the article to suggest
that is the case.

------
galfarragem
"What's your religion? Arbitrage."

------
IAmGraydon
It's an interesting story, but isn't it far more efficient to find a single
product that has good selling potential and just put your effort into sourcing
that product? Instead of spending $1000 on 10 different categories of product,
spend $10,000 on one product, thereby leveraging economies of scale.

~~~
Godel_unicode
Maybe, but this is pretty basic portfolio theory here. Diversification means
you have less effect on the price of any one good (consider that you need
buyers for your goods) as well as less risk of an abrupt Amazon price cut
wiping you out.

------
jdblair
Why don't Wal-Mart and other retailers get into this game themselves? They
know their own stock, they could constantly compare their in-store prices to
what they could make selling on Amazon. After they develop the processes it
would just be part of their usual inventory management.

~~~
anonymous5133
Walmart is not going to help their direct competitor. Ever since AMZ bought
whole foods they know the game is very real and that whole foods could
eventually scale up to something similar to what walmart has. They can just
call it "whole foods warehouse" or something like that. Amazon will be able to
compete because amazon is using technology for customer benefit while walmart
is just using logistics, strong arming suppliers and employees. Those were
advantages in the past but no more. Amazon is also doing logistics innovation
and they're doing it better than walmart.

------
rmason
Gary Vaynerchuk has demonstrated doing the same thing. But his sources are
garage sales and dollar stores. He carries apps for EBay and Amazon on his
phone so he can easily see whether the margin is worth his effort. He aims his
advice at kids who can easily pick up $1-2K a month.

------
shmerl
Does it add any value? Seems like pure middleman profiteering without positive
output.

~~~
a3n
And?

A gas station convenience store clerk gets a salary in part from selling sugar
water that promotes tooth decay and cancer.

What's the difference?

Everyone has to make a living, and our economy is not structured to prefer
"positive" output, it only cares about profit. If you call this guy into
question, you should be looking at the larger picture.

~~~
shmerl
Sure, I agree with you, it's not an unusual thing. Still, the question
remains.

~~~
tfmatt
Well it's more convenient for someone to buy, that adds value.

------
elvirs
thats a lie. almost all brands sell also on amazon and will come after your
listings if you list their products on amazon. the fact that those are
original products and you arent infringing any trademarks or other ip dont
mean shit, ‘retail arbitrage’ is not allowed on amazon. your walmart receipts
wont prove anything either. you must be authorized reseller who buys the stuff
from wholesale suppliers of the product.

------
nautilus12
Is this evidence that on average you can expect to pay more on Amazon? I
thought part of the appeal of Amazon was that it was generally the opposite?

------
guga84
They try to maximize the profits they make on all of their existing and
potential customers, now and in the future

------
ryanmarsh
Good to know retail arbitrage is still a thing. I guess the algorithms haven’t
taken over yet!

~~~
zootam
until the labor to manipulate all these goods drops to near zero- it will
continue to exist.

------
booleanbetrayal
Walmart must be trying to dump inventory for the cost of an article. =P

------
hi5eyes
this is like scourging the prices on runescape and alching them lool

------
jnordwick
Meat space HFT.

------
m3kw9
Classic arbitrage opportunity trade

------
koancone
I am not sure what the point of these news stories is. Arbitrage opportunities
have existed throughout history. How is it newsworthy? However, a basic
understanding of economics would indicate that such market inefficiencies tend
to disappear once widely publicized. I guess the journalist wants to grab a
piece of the ephemeral surplus by publishing. In the same vein I don't
understand why people share truly original ideas on show HN or waste their
time contributing to open source. I guess everyone is wired differently. If I
had been practising the sort of arbitrage the guy in the article was doing I
would have been highly motivated to keep it secret, to minimize the number of
new entrants (competitors), etc.

~~~
eropple
_> waste their time contributing to open source_

"Waste time." I shouldn't reply to this kind of antisociality, but this is
_gross_ enough that I feel compelled to. I contribute to open source because
it is the right thing to do, because I have gotten so much from it that it is
only right to pay it forward. You should be doing the same, not sneering at
people with a sense of community to them.

~~~
golf1052
You're very right, the internet and technology would be very different if open
source didn't exist.

Basically saying, if you aren't only helping yourself and turning a profit
you're doing it wrong is a little disturbing to hear.

~~~
koancone
The internet and modern computers are the result of Government and University
funding (e.g. DARPA, UC Berkeley BSD) and corporate R & D projects like Xerox
Alto / Start at PARC and Bell Labs Unix, C, etc.

Free Open source volunteers merely imitated (Linux vs. Unix) or extended
institutional or corporate sponsored projects or ideas. Without robust
government and corporate funding of basic research in the later 20th century
we would not have the well developed information technology industry we have
today. People founding vanity projects, ICOs, and forking is not moving the
industry forward. What truly revolutionary innovations have originated from
open source software vs. just imitation or variation?

Blockchain is revolutionary but the developers did monetize their work in that
case (literally). In this society you need to earn money to live. It is
mysterious that so many people in software want to practice their trade for
free. I guess they love what they do but I think the quality of their work
would increase if it was monetized. Monetization need not imply centralization
or appropriation c.f. bitcoin.

It just means assigning value and ownership to the results of socially
valuable work. What is so evil about that? I think, from an evolutionary psych
view why people think contributing to OSS is prosocial is because of something
like a genetic tendency to share new technology with the tribe. In the
ancestral environment it would have been uncool for one shaman to have
monopolized a new flint knapping technique. But with the rise of trade and
property right people can develop and protect their competitive advantage /
economic niche and monetize their work for benefit of the whole of society why
collecting a reward from their innovations. Free Open Source fanatics like the
GNU people are stuck in the stone age and do the profession of software
development a disservice.

~~~
onion2k
_It just means assigning value and ownership to the results of socially
valuable work. What is so evil about that?_

Nothing at all. That's how Canonical built a billion dollar corporation
building on and releasing, for free, open source code. That's why Facebook,
Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc all release huge amounts of their code openly
and for free. There's no reason to believe you can't make amazing open code
and generate huge profits too.

 _Free Open Source fanatics like the GNU people are stuck in the stone age and
do the profession of software development a disservice._

GNU gave us the GPL and LGPL, which, combined with the rise of the internet
for distribution, was fundamental in changing the way applications are built
using other people's code. Those "fanatics" made _every_ developer's lives
immeasurably better. Even if you don't like the code they produce themselves
you still have a lot to be grateful for.

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saidhe
Just think about someone needs to stroll around Walmart and find all these
4000 items each month chosen meticulously, buy them, store them, package them
and ship them. Then there is a classic and dreaded inventory problem. The
items you bought from Walmart has no guarantee that they will get sold by same
day, week or even a month. It's not hard to imagine that you will need 2X
inventory and many of these items may go unsold in long tail easily wiping out
significant profits.

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the_arun
wow!

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hacker_9
The Black-Scholes algorithm in effect.

