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| Ken 'Bundy' Brown 2003 Band "Gray market goods" |
From time to time though, I'll return here. My goal is to make the blog shorter and sharper. A lot of the posts have emphasized the same point, rewording the collective outrage of the geeks of color in different ways. It can be done humorously, like the April Fools "African Matrix Blog" (scarily foreshadowing the methodology of the E-Waste Tragedy "scrapumentary"), or with college thesis flair, or angrily. But the goal now is to provide insight in modest bites.
Here's the key difference between exports of used electronics to African and Indonesian geeks and the exports to the ports controlled by (mostly Taiwanese) businesspeople in China. The Chinese market, in the 1990s, was more like Africa today, importing for direct reuse and consumption in Chinese cities which could not otherwise afford brand new product. That's like used German cars being sold in Poland in the late 1980s, or used brand name appliances to Russians in the 90s. That's what Hurricane Hamdy, Hurricane Benson, and other African traders have been engaged in. It's pretty simple, a secondary market taking gently used and electively upgraded material from wealthy neighborhoods and reselling them in emerging neighborhoods. Salvation Army, Goodwill Industries, St. Vincent de Paul, eBay.
- In a direct resale market, you are selling a used car with the odometer reading is correct.
- In a direct resale market, you could be selling a used car with the odometer rolled back.
- In a brand new market, you could be selling a brand new car.
- In a brand new market, you could be selling what looks like a brand new car, but is basically "spray and pray" (new coats of paint on an old or recalled motor).
(Here's some background music by Ken "Bundy" Brown via Youtube. I'm a huge fan of Leo Kottke and Ry Cooder, and would place Gray Market Goods in that style or vein. His older stuff is a more Little Feat-ish.)
