Some feedback on whether my project would do harm or good. (scalping)

For mods: I don’t know if posting this here makes the most sense, if not pls move it.

TLDR: I have made a pretty effective scalping bot for normies, but fear releasing it will make the problem worse not better for them, need some feedback.

I have been busy with one of my hobby projects lately and it is in the late stages of development. But now I am questioning if releasing it will be a good idea (morally/practically).

What does it do?
It is a scalping bot framework designed to be easily extended
and used by non-technical users (point and click GUI).
And a research template to optimize network latency (tools to check what sites you will most likely win on based on your network latency to said servers) and how to optimize it

With the following goals:

  • It needs to be competitive with the privately developed bots (lowest latency reasonably possible)
  • it needs to be easy for novel devs to extend the functionality through adapters for all marketplaces and shops
  • it must be easy to use for end-users (normie friendly)
  • it must be free

Why another bot? there are already bots available.
The main reason is that the (free) bots are either targeted towards technical users and are not as easy to extend to be able to operate on more shops/marketplaces. And the big one they are slow as hell (mostly python/js )

My rationale for releasing it is it will either.
a) Give normies a chance to compete on even footing with the bots
b) Make the problem so bad shops will be forced to implement effective anti-bot strategies nuking all scalping bots (some shops already have it, but not all and not good enough)

But there are some adverse side effects I could reasonably foresee.
These include but are not limited to:

  • the other scalpers get free better tools
  • If the project is not widely known about it makes it worse for the exact kind of people this is targeted towards
  • It can be abused by people wanting to make a profit flipping the items on eBay, etc
  • It will make backroom deals worse (where they don’t even list the devices)

My question to you is.
Is it a good idea to publish this? will it actually help people or will I only contribute to the problem I am trying to solve here? Are there some things I could do to prevent it doing harm (any limits I put on the software will only harm the normies since the scalpers can edit the source code)?

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I am similarly of two mind but on the opposite end to where you are.

a) Even if it works for the normies, now that everyone (retailers) has caught on to high prices they are actively pushing the prices as high as the market will suffer. Effectively becoming the scalpers themselves. So while it is laudable that you want to make this for the normies, they can no longer afford or if they can, justify the price being asked for the cards and are, outside of essential need, not interested in fueling the madness.

b) Pushing the stores to do something about the bots, while a nice idea, they don’t care any more. Like above they are now charging the high prices from the start, so it is all cream to them no matter who buys them so they just allow the bots and make the money. Even the likes of Newegg who are playing the good guy side are being sleazy by bundling crap and adding to waste world wide, simultaneously pushing up the price of GPUs and driving the market for everything else down as the second hand market is being flooded with unneeded parts.

So I don’t know what to advise. It is too late for the normies and the stores don’t care.

For anyone it may help I say go ahead and release it but expect it to just keep things as they are just slightly faster.

For the exposure. If you can demonstrate that it is genuinely faster and more effective of a bot than the other pay for options, that will get the attention.
The other side of that is, if it is that effective you may find your self hired to work for the bot makers, or more realistically your work stolen and pressed into their paid for services, or just reverse engineered and incorporated into their products.

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Yeah that’s what I was getting at. It is so bad now there is no deal to be had, even if you are faster you are going to pay very high prices, MSRP does not exist anymore other than on AMDs own website (which is only available to USA), everyone one else is just charging whatever they can get away with.

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Have to agree with other commenter; things are so bad, you can’t effectively make them worse, so you might as well and go ahead and release your work. You’ve already put in the man hours, right?

If anything, I’d just use it as a chance to build a free alternative to the paid scalper services. Maybe it won’t help normies, but it will kill one more way that others are profiting off the situation.

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