It just occoured to me, while reading the thread about "what did you do before the internet". The internet has made some things more expensive. I'm not talking about everyday stuff you can buy off Amazon, I'm talking about rare stuff, vintage stuff. Car parts, for instance. If you were trying to sell an engine that was in your garage, you'd have to put an effort into selling it. Post some ads up on cork boards in local stores, take it to the local swap meet, tell your friends "hey if you know anyone looking to buy a 383, I've got one for sale." Last resort you'd take out an ad in the paper and hope it sells before you need to renew it. It took actual effort, and you were better off letting it go for cheaper than you were hanging onto it and putting effort into selling it.



Now, you post an ad up on Craigslist, and as long as your asking price isn't too outrageous, you can have it sold in a matter of minutes. There's no effort involved, and if you don't like the first guy's offer, there's likely 3-4 more offers right behind it.



Small, shippable parts, like air intakes... post an ad up on eBay or the EE on related websites, and you get not only local but worldwide hits. Your part is no longer just available to the local public that are lucky enough to see your ad, now you could sell it to someone in a city across the state, a state across the country, or even a country on the other side of the world. You can take the highest paying bidder, instead of having to worry if you'll find another person who is interested.



Thanks a lot, internet.

If I am seller I would rather have 100,000 people see it worldwide than just 25 locals.
 

 

Same with vintage gun parts. I just had a guy pay me $75.00 at auction for a butt plate for a .22 trainer. All it takes is two motivated bidders.

Double edged sword though.

On the other hand it's also made hard to find items cheaper since before Internet (BI) some items were needle in a haystack scarce.
I have been told through family members who deal with antiques that items once went for X are now going for Y since everyone and their brother  has access to eBay and other sites and realize that they also have one of those rare things in the closet.

Completely agree. The internet has made it more of a seller's market, for desirable items at least.

This. And I build hot rods, most large part locating, buying and selling comes from word of mouth or network. If I need something I call anyone in my car club or tons of contacts and it's rare it takes more that a day or two to locate the part. If I can't though There is a lot of small shit that I would never find without the net. It's a godsend for small parts 50+ years old.

Something is only worth what someone will pay for it.

the free market works.


The internet just facilitates this, allowing a truer representation of something's value.

your kidding right.. car starter,  local part store 100 bucks   on line  shipped to my house same part. 35-40 bucks .  contacts 1/3 the price,  ammo  1/2 the price.

"The internet has made things more expensive."



No, just No.

CL stuff  has gone up in price. Everyone now knows what that thingy ma jig is and what one just like it sold for.

The Net has only saved me money  Although I might be spending more overall cause I buy shit all the time.

The internet has made things more available.

Availability is good.

On the other hand, if you want an unusual part, now you can get it from multiple sources.

I was going to post the very same thing - sans the story (The internet has been reasonably popular since I was in high school).  The tradeoff for the increase incrase in price for some items is the ease in finding them.  Basically, the buyer is paying a little more money in return for saving significantly more time (and in Lightning_P38's case, it not only cost more money for the part, it probably cost a fair bit in fuel to search for this part...plus all the time spent doing it).  The seller gets an even better deal - they make out on the time and the money.  I'll take slightly more expensive but actually available over a slightly less expensive Indiana Jones quest any day of the week.

Hell, I learned my own lesson, actually.  Several years back I had a side mirror taken out when I was parked (tow mirror for '01 F250).  I thought I'd save a few bucks by checking the junkyards.  Five junkyards, five hours spent looking and not one had the mirror I was looking for.  Lesson fucking learned.

eBay is amazing.

eBay totally crushed the value of most baseball cards.  Turns out they weren't nearly as rare as people thought back when you had to drive around to card shops (which were also destroyed wholesale).  But the ones that are actually rare became even more valuable because rarity was easy to confirm and the seller reached more potential buyers.  I'm sure this has applied to many other markets.

it is that way with outboard motors. They sell for more money than what they should when using pre internet pricing models. The funny part is that they are twice as expensive to fix than the older ones and will have a major failure almost as often.

This is why I switched to a mud motor (that I bought on the internet).  I found the parts for my outboard that were more than I paid for the entire boat, and that didn't include the machining that needed to be done, which was still cheaper than buying a new crankshaft.  My mud motor takes lawn mower parts

 

It just made it less likely that you could find something valuable that the seller did not know could be sold for much more.