Originally Posted by
livedarklions
BS. Your freshman econ 101 is pretty rusty.
The information is readily available--bicycles are not complicated so information asymmetry isn't really a factor, and rent seeking is really not practical even in a small market as barriers to entry are low to non-existent. Anyone who wants to put in the time to do this can do so.
Those assumptions are of "perfect competition", BTW, not free markets, which just means that prices are set by supply and demand without authoritative regulation. Perfect competition is an idealized state as any economist will acknowledge.
The comparison to ticket resales is absurd. Tickets are a product where literally nothing can be done to change it that won't decrease the value. A lot of these guys are taking bikes that aren't functional or only marginally so, and taking the time and materials necessary to produce useable bikes. And even if they are not improving them, gathering them together so someone can look at many at a time might, by itself be a service people are willing to pay a little more for.
Nonsense. It is not readily available, especially if you look at your local ads and the prices are all inflated due to the effect OP is describing.
Stop kidding yourself, there is no such thing as a free market. If supply and demand were all that mattered, then people like OP is describing would not exist. They manipulate supply. The "free market" is an idealized state fetishized by materialistic, selfish narcissists.
Gathering them so people can compare many at a time? That is the best you can do for supposed value? Yea, alright then.