But creating an arbitrage opportunity by buying all of the supply that would be readily available if you hadn't intervened is wrong.
If there are 100 widgets and 200 people want widgets, it is wrong for a third party who has no particular desire for widgets to buy all 100 widgets and sell them for an insane markup. He changed a 50% deficiency of supply into a 100% supply, artificially reducing it. This allows him to artificially increase the price.
All in all, this is why I'm hardly ever a first adopter. I let the sharks and the morons fight over the buggy 1st generation crap and then swing around when the 2nd or 3rd generation hardware hype isn't out of control.
If you can pull off cornering a market, than you have earned your profit. It's very difficult in practise and people have probably lost more money than they won.
From Wikipedia:
"Although there have been many attempts to corner markets in everything from tin to cattle, to date very few of these attempts have ever succeeded; instead, most of these attempted corners have tended to break themselves spontaneously. The party attempting to corner a market can become very vulnerable due to the size of their position, especially if their attempt becomes widely known. If the rest of the market senses weakness, it may resist any attempt to artificially drive the market any further by actively taking opposing positions. When the price starts to move against the cornerer, they are in a very difficult position, as it is likely to be impossible to exit much of their position without catastrophically moving prices against themselves. In such a situation, many other parties will be able to profit from the cornerer's need to unwind their position." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market)
If there are only 100 widget and there is a price such that there are exactly 100 people willing to pay the price for a widget, not only is it ok to charge that price but its probably the _socially optimal_ price for the widget since it will be the people who want the widget most who will get it, rather than the widget being distributed randomly. So the markup isn't something insane, but rather what the manufacturer should have been charging in the first place.
The only bad part about reselling is that the manufacturer doesn't capture the extra sale price and invest it in making more widgets, so everyone can be happy.
If there are 100 widgets and 200 people want widgets, it is wrong for a third party who has no particular desire for widgets to buy all 100 widgets and sell them for an insane markup. He changed a 50% deficiency of supply into a 100% supply, artificially reducing it. This allows him to artificially increase the price.
All in all, this is why I'm hardly ever a first adopter. I let the sharks and the morons fight over the buggy 1st generation crap and then swing around when the 2nd or 3rd generation hardware hype isn't out of control.