SuperOyster: Monetizing the Waiting List

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1. Marshall Kirkpatrick
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 5:03 pm

   That much seems true, persistent market inefficiencies are at least seriously threatened by new web 2.0 technologies. Now we’ll see whether the old guard in various industries adopts these tools, is threatened by upstarts who do, or whether entrenched power holds its own.

2. Jason Purdy
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 5:18 pm

   This is totally f… up in my opinion. You shouldn’t be able to just buy out somebody’s spot in line. If you’re waiting in line for the bathroom at an Arsenal game and somebody walks up and says i’ll give you 100 pounds to go sit down and i’ll take your spot i’d be pretty pissed off….there’s something to be said for waiting yourself, ESPECIALLY when it comes to things like season tickets to sports. Many times these are generational and it pisses me off that some rich snob could barge into a line without waiting.

3. Startups.in
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 5:27 pm

   This is called “black-marketing” in plain english. Highly unethical practice.

   Regards,
   NagB /at/
   Startups.in

4. Techie
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 5:44 pm

   I agree that if you are willing to sell your spot to a rich snob, then so be it. From a logical standpoint, its a fair transaction. But there IS some inherent value in knowing that the person waiting in front of you had to wait longer than you. If I had to camp out over night to get the number two spot, I would be pretty annoyed that the number one spot was just somebody who paid to be there. That’s the whole point of a line.

5. Marshall Kirkpatrick
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 5:47 pm

   Lol, now that you mention it - hasn’t the black market allways taken advantage of existing market inefficiencies! That does seem a bit strong an analogy. It appears that the service will only be offered by vendors who elect to use it - no waiting in line for the bathroom involved. Think multi-year wait for season tickets, or you know how long some people wait to get Section 8 housing subsidies in the US…oh well, nevermind.

6. ted
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 6:10 pm

   Are there really enough situations like this to warrent a real business?

7. victor hanna
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

   Whoever has the time to play around with a website of this sort surely must have plenty of time on their hands.

   As far as a real underlying business, I didn’t study the website, but I’ve got a sense that the site will attract brokers and scalpers to further the efficiency of the website’s marketplace.

8. Frog29
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 6:56 pm

   Sounds like some stupid companies will go around and buy (or get) the first 1000 spots in a line then sell them for extreme prices and have a complete monopoly….

   Wait maybe I should DO that!…. Do i have to kill you for telling you my idea?

9. Isabel Wang
   

   May 24th, 2006 at 7:25 pm

   A Russian friend once said that people in Moscow are so much more practical. Nothing is ever truly sold out. Latecomers routinely buy out someone else’s spot. It sounded wrong - but as he put it, isn’t commerce about both parties getting what they want more of?

   He did have a point, but it’s hard to take because time is the only thing that wealthier people don’t have more of. You stand in a long line for something because it’s meaningful to you. So even when someone offers you what seems like a substantial sum, it trivializes what you’re waiting for because you know the amount is negligible to him.

10. Jeff
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 7:57 pm

    I’m having a hard time differentiating this service from a less-reputable, low-tech service like scalping. If I pay a 300% premium for a no. 2 spot in line, I am effectively paying a scalper’s price for a guaranteed ticket. Ticket prices, then, are undermined over the long run. In the short term, it is (at best) a novel way to earn some money for being an early bird. I hear scalpers rushing in already. And why would a merchant opt for such a service? If merchants see the profits moving away from their coffers, they’ll just increase prices… the best and most tried-and-true method to “destroy persistent market inefficiencies.”

11. Jordan Mitchell
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 8:09 pm

    I honestly can’t believe what I’m hearing. This isn’t unethical just because someone paid a premium to buy out a place in line in front of you. It’s not like you LOST your place in line. And the more demand that demonstrates itself, you more value your place in line becomes. This is a brilliant idea and highly disruptive, and it’ll work for new cars, boat slips, season tickets, golf club memberships, etc. As long as it’s governed BY the merchants, with measures to prevent slimy scalpers from taking all the positions (such as a healthy deposit to show you’re serious), everyone wins.

12. Search Engines WEB
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 8:44 pm

    Now people will make a career out of getting in line at competative sports or concert events - just to sell their space - without any intention of going to those events.

    Companies will spring up - and hire college students - or homeless people
    to wait in line.

    But many popular events have scalpers - so this may not really make that much of a dent.

13. BlogReader
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 8:48 pm

    This is a brilliant idea and highly disruptive, and it’ll work for new cars, boat slips, season tickets, golf club memberships, etc.

    Do you work for this company? I hardly think making a service where you can trade your place in line is worthy of “brilliant” nor “disruptive” Somewhat interesting, but I doubt if the higher end places (boat slips, golf memberships) will allow this service as they want to maintain exclusivity.

    And is there that much of a market for people in a queue for a new car?

14. Robert Dewey
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 9:04 pm

    All I can say is wow… and I don’t mean “wow” in a good way

15. Darren
    

    May 24th, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    Wow, that is some crazy lateral thinking.

    And I don’t buy the ethical argument either. Scalping is a free market at work. Why regulate the price on event tickets?

16. Desik
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 1:17 am

    I think the moral outrage is a tad overdone here as touting and unfair distribution goes on anyway ( check out how many major brands are currently offering World Cup tickets witheld from regular match goers) so if SuperOyster puts buyers and sellers of season tickets, space flights and limited edition cars in touch with each other , which is the point of the site right?, what’s the problem?

    It’s a visible process , a market exists anyway and if this site takes off SuperOyster is not going to have a monopoly of the market for very long, it’ll become extremely competetive - read more efficient - and we can at least wave goodbye to the touts who really arent very nice people.

    Dont get mad, start applying or queing for some event or service you really arent interested in then use your mobile phone to sign up to SuperOyster.. ………

17. Darren McLaughlin
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 2:57 am

    I have no moral problem with it, I just can’t see how big of a market this is. I guess you could be looking at a whole new generation of “line-standers”. I know some people who would be perfect for the job.

18. Zach Cox
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 4:26 am

    What’s wrong with this? You’re not *forced* to sell your place in line! A higher place in line is a thing you worked harder for than someone else and therefore should be able to sell to someone else, if you so desire.

    Besides, this site will obviously be smashed by competition soon enough - they don’t even support whitespace in their user names!!!

19. Robert Dewey
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 5:53 am

    My position isn’t an ethical one either — I’m all for people being able to sell what they want for however much they want. What I’m not seeing is the market for people to sell their position in line at a bathroom, etc..

    Hey, at least they have a revenue model

20. Kevin
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 6:59 am

    As with ad words that created a monetized layer between the search criteria and the end result which in trun decreased the efficiency of Internet searches and increased the cost of the search engine game, this does the same thing. Soon many positions will be for sale with people who are in it for the money thus DECREASING the efficiency and INCREASING the cost. I remember when the Internet was hailed as the remover of the middleman, however we are finding ways to re-create that layer for money and primarily to the middle mans benefit only! This is not egalitarian! I would be happy to pay for a service that removes that layer, go figure!!

21. Greg
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 7:41 am

    I think it mitigates a lot of the outrage when you remember that these are individual place-holders selling their spots. It’s not the company with the waiting list selling top spots to the highest bidder, it’s the people waiting.

    I’d like to see a cottege industry spring up around this - professional line-waiters, who grab early slots and make a living selling them.

22. John B
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 8:22 am

    Hilarious. Having a problem with this is having an issue with ebay. Its no different than all the people standing in line now and reselling the tickets/xbox360s/cell phones on ebay. Does it make people mad that rich people buy front row playoff tickets on ebay?

23. Matt Kowalczyk
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 8:27 am

    Hey all, thanks for the great feedback. I’m one of the founders of SuperOyster and wanted to provide some background on this service. We witnessed many people selling positions in a various lines today. I even found people reselling dinner reservations online, if you can believe it. From the standpoint of the merchant, this is a losing proposition and in the dinner reservation case, the restaurants did not honor the resold reservations. Enter SuperOyster, where we partner with the merchant, thus providing a service where both the consumer and merchant benefit. The merchant can legitimize a marketplace that already exisits, and the consumer will receive assurance that the transaction will be honored.

24. Daniele Levy
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 9:02 am

    How about using this for pre-schools in the Bay Area? A huuuge market of over-achieving parents forced into an ‘egalitarian’ way of living a they wait in endless lines to get Junior in the over-priced school of their choice :-).

25. Ben
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 9:45 am

    Wow, this service already has Gale Sayers, Joe Montana, and Lynn Swann as sellers.

26. Matt Kowalczyk
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 9:46 am

    Peter brings up a great point. From day one, I discovered ways that this concept could be abused. My goal was not to create a divide between the haves and the have nots, but rather harness a market that already exists. There are some markets, such as organ donors, that I will NEVER go after because its just not ethical. Education is another.

27. jason
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 11:04 am

    I love the idea. Sure I can see why there are those who get some satisfaction knowing that the guy in front has waited longer than you but this means that his spot is more valuable if time is money.

    Another example of the internet changing the world

28. Michael Arrington
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 11:30 am

    I think something like this would be perfect for the organ donor program, and possibly help fix this very broken “market”.

    An even better solution would be to pay people a fee when they are actually alive to enter into a binding agreement that they will become organ donors upon their death. A lot of people become organ donors because it’s the right thing to do. A lot more would become organ donors for $100 in their pocket today.

    Economic markets drive efficiency and more supply. More supply means people can get more stuff. It’s very romantic to talk about socialist ideals, but it’s not very intelligent.

29. Jim
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 11:32 am

    In college we had to wait in line to sign up for classes. I paid a guy to wait in line showed up right before the door opened and switched places. I was about to get lynched until people realized they were still in the same place by the time I got signed up I heared people saying that they knew what they were doing next year. The only issue I see with this is you’ll get a lot of people signing up to wait in line only because they see it as something they can sell. This could make the line long enough so the only reallistic way to get in would be to buy a spot.

30. Mark Mills
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 1:37 pm

    That’s right, this would be perfect for organ donor programs. If someone can outbid for a liver or a kidney, they should get that organ first. After all, free markets are the most fair system in the history of mankind. If it can be regulated by market forces, let it be regulated by market forces! Socialists of the world: romance is dead. Long live the markets, Tech Crunch, and smart white guys like Michael Arrington!

31. BC
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 2:19 pm

    Actually, Mr. Arrington’s idea is a very sound one. LifeSharers (http://www.lifesharers.org/) has been doing something similar for a while now. Rather than a direct economic incentive to participate, priority is given to committed donors at the time of organ allocation.

32. Pink
    

    May 25th, 2006 at 2:30 pm

    WOW! I think it is hilarious reading some of your comments. I’m not totally understanding why anyone would care how much the person in front of them paid for their position? I look at it like this…if they have the means to pay someone else to hold their position for them until the time is just right, then more power to ‘em. It sounds like some people are just bitter that they won’t be able to afford to buy the position in front of them. I say, suck it up people! Your turn is always next…you won’t lose it unless you decide to sell it.

33. JW
    

    May 26th, 2006 at 7:26 am

    Selling your 50th place for $45,000,000 (http://stars.alpha.superoyster.com/list/53/buy), eh, if that is how you make money

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35. Dan Warne
    

    May 28th, 2006 at 12:33 am

    I can’t help thinking that the people who made that logo used the Napster logo as a template and then sorta fiddled around with it.

36. Vladimir Orlt
    

    May 29th, 2006 at 10:21 am

    IMHO this is a good business idea that should work. Financial markets have always valued time.

37. Peter T. Brown
    

    May 31st, 2006 at 1:41 pm

    Hello Folks. Thanks very much for this great commentary. I’m Head of Web development and SuperOyster and I’ve posted a blog entry on our blog addressing some of the concerns so well articulated here.

    Please have a look: http://superoyster.blogspot.co.....ter-t.html

38. Jake Tracey
    

    June 3rd, 2006 at 7:12 pm

    God, if I read the word ‘disruptive’ again i’m going to punch my desk

39. Stuart Oliver
    

    June 14th, 2006 at 4:10 am

    I think that paying to reduce waiting is perfectly ethical. It is equally favourable to those who, perhaps, do not have money but do have time. Now these guys can negotiate a fair exchange of value for their time just the same as you do in a job. you get paid X per hour. Now you get paid X per hour for waiting - as long as you like to read, what’s wrong with that?

    This is a good idea at creating a commercial venture where all parties benefit - The buyer, the cybermediary, the seller - what’s wrong with that?