garbagescout blog

The ability to check the value of something using your mobile phone, either by calling a friend or using a SMS-based lookup (perhaps like the one Froogle offers) is wrreaking havoc on once laid-back yard sales, reports the Wall Street Journal [account required].

[W]hat was once a casual affair […] has been replaced by the
frenzy of a free-market economy. Aggressive shoppers are arming themselves with
global-positioning devices to quickly zoom from sale to sale and special
scanners and cellphone services that let them do a quick price check on items
(such as used books and CDs) that have bar codes printed on them.

What’s relevant to garbagescout is the idea of using mobile phones as endpoints of the internet, for retrieving and tranasmitting data.

Also, somehow, and probably because of eBay, used stuff has come to be seen as having a real value, that is one you can actually look up. Its value is still “whatever you can gat for it”, but people have a much better idea of what that is. That’s good, in the sense that it will encourage reuse.

On a personal note, I don’t really care about making money at a stoop sale (that’s what they have around here). I just do it because I don’t want to see stuff go in the landfill. It gives me pleasure to connect people with something they can use, and if I’m not using it I don’t want it.

Thanks to Big Swinging for the link.