It’s not about you liking or hating Reverb or any of your experience there. It is and always was about the ethics of using the site to initiate a sale and then moving off site to rob them of their fees. Period. Don’t use it? Don’t care. Stop all your typing about how horrible they are. Pointless. And too long, didn’t read. Point is: do business with someone then abide by the rules. This is simple.
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reverb.com scam?
- Thread starter Dave montreal
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- scam reverb.com
I don’t have a problem with people “robbing” an unethical corporate entity that is based on deception and continual increases in fees. They brought this “robbery” upon themselves. It’s not as if I’m defending shoplifting here. Reverb/Etsy needs to change their business model if they expect to remain competitive. They invite this type of thing with their ever increasing fees and unfettered access to their site. I’ll return to that analogy of leaving an entire giant bowl of candy on the doorstep at Halloween and then carping about the one kid who takes it all. You’re stupid if you repeat that the following Halloween. Reverb/ Etsy are collectively stupid. My guess is that the Reverb site has become a loss leader for them, and their unwillingness to charge up front for their advertising space and reducing their fees is to blame.
Yeah, by now you’ve made it clear you are ok with stealing, it’s that sort of action that the poster was referring to above that causes everyone else to pay more. Just like shoplifting. Tip: don’t like the site, don’t use it. Don’t steal. This is simple.
Tagging on to @Wilmingtonian 's point - I am by no means an expert in business analysis or economics, but consider this:
Most if not all businesses have certain fixed, or at least inflexible operating costs that impact their bottom lines. Those fixed operating costs are covered by consumers paying for them via the purchase of the goods and services offered by those businesses. The more people that pay for those services, the less expense per consumer for those fixed costs. This is the idea behind economies of scale, and one reason why something produced in large quantities is often more affordable - lower production costs. This is a gross oversimplification, but think of being a business owner who buys a machine that produces 100,000 units versus 1,000 - which one would spread the cost of the machine into the profits generated by the sale of the products more efficiently?
One of the reasons it is unethical to use Reverb to advertise, then circumvent them by taking the transaction elsewhere is because the fixed costs to those businesses are there regardless. They are pushed onto those who do pay them by those who don't. One is literally stealing the services that Reverb pays out of their business expenses for us to use. And because they or no other company magically makes money out of thin air, it has to come from somewhere, in the from of added cost to the consumers to choose to both use and pay for the service. This argument, by the way, does not work the other way around. Reverb is the one offering the service and is not committing theft by charging fees deemed too high by anyone. Sellers may be trying to make money, but they are still consumers of Reverb's service and agree to the terms of sale upon listing an item.
There is a counterargument here, which is that the companies are held between two opposing forces: one, to offer the service at the lowest possible cost to remain competitive; and two, to offer the service at the highest cost and least expense that they can to maximize profit. Given that businesses are often first and foremost out to make money, it's understandable that they would lean toward the latter option when possible. Corporate greed is a real thing - I won't deny that. As consumers in a capitalist market, however, we have the ability to keep that tendency in check to some extent. We vote with our money, and we tell businesses that we don't like for whatever reason (too expensive, poor service, etc.) that we don't like them by choosing not to do business with them - not by stealing from them. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Again, if Reverb's, PayPal's etc. fees are such that one considers them too expensive, they simply shouldn't use those services. Feel free to use whatever other service you would like. Talkbass is certainly much more affordable than Reverb, but I would bet that Reverb ads for bass gear are going to garner far more eyeballs than identical items listed on the TB classifieds, not to mention that the average TBer is probably more likely to be hip to the bass gear market and thus harder to bargain with. You get what you pay for - in this case, the size and scope of Reverb's brand identity.
I really am firmly of the opinion that advertising on Reverb, then taking the transaction elsewhere to avoid the fees is tantamount to theft. Reverb has every right to, and frankly should issue warnings and even ban those who do this repeatedly from using the service. I am sure Reverb is aware that people are doing this and probably has a strategy, i.e. the extent of tolerance or a system of how violations are dealt with, probably based on what will be most profitable to them in the long term. On that note, the trend toward these companies moving from individual sellers to corporate sellers such as music stores makes sense. If the little guys are going to rip them off on a micro level, it is more profitable to them to offer their services to businesses who have a lot more paperwork, red tape, i.e., accountability to perform above-board transactions, and thus ensure that the marketplace services will get their cut on a macro level.
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I'm hearing the same rationale as you hear when people steal cable TV or internet service or pirate music or movies. The big bad company has something I want, but they charge more than I want to pay, so it's OK to steal from them because, ya know, big bad company and all. As has been explained ad nauseum here, when you do that you aren't just hurting the big bad company, you are freeloading off all the other people who have the integrity to pay for what they use.
Have you been on Reverb of late? It’s a Ghost Town...If you are familiar with the site and have been there as recently as last year, you can’t help but see that. I think it is a loss leader in that their projected profits based on the site’s prior market cap HAVE to be woefully short. I think the corporate environment of a company like Etsy encourages acquisition, but Etsy’s projections and greed and overall ineptitude concerning the market for used gear has bitten them in the rear end. You cannot subject a market that relies on such thin margins to exorbitant charges that myself and at least one other poster have painstakingly detailed . If you have a bass that you paid upwards of $4000 for retail and you want a fair price, you aren’t going to get more than $3000 for it. Throw 20% in fees and shipping at that bass and watch it die a slow death on Reverb.
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Yeah, I’m reluctant to go there, but it works it’s way into this discussion here if just to further illustrate corporate greed. Etsy saw a considerable break in corporate taxation, and what did they see fit to do with it? They bought another business and raised their fees.
Exactly. Netflix, Apple Music, etc. are conveniences, nothing more. They and other streaming services are doing well because enough people find the convenience to be worth it.
Has their success also more or less destroyed much of the record industry and forced most artists, save those at the very top, to scramble as to how to find new ways to monetize their music? And has it made it much more difficult if not impossible for most to make a middle class living as a musician without some other form of income to support that? If I had a nickel, however, for every artist lamenting the rise of streaming who also had a Spotify, Apple Music, etc. account, do you think I could afford to buy a flight in a Space X rocket?
Heck, my state's public library offers thousands of music CDs and DVDs of TV shows, movies, documentaries, etc. for free, and will deliver any media to a library of my choice to pick up. I could save the ~$10 a month and take a 10 minute drive to my closest library if I were willing to do so. I quite literally drive right by the place multiple times per week.
Again - you get what you pay for!
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