But give it a few years, and technology that’s just as fast will catch up to that big, bad machine from a few years prior.Ĭonsider subscribing to our freaking newsletter. Not everything-of course, there’s always that errant business-world feature that makes no sense in a consumer context. To put it simply: Back when a computer or similar product was originally released, it was prohibitively expensive for many consumers, while also being significantly more powerful than anything the average consumer could buy, anyway.Īt the same time, there’s a general tendency for business-focused technology to trickle down to consumers after a while. Often a product no longer makes sense for its original target audience, so it goes on eBay or a surplus outlet, where it reaches someone for whom it does.īut in the case of what I’ll call “upgrade arbitrage,” the situation highlights a dramatic disparity between two markets. More generally, if you’ve ever visited another country and benefited from a favorable exchange rate, you’ve practiced arbitrage.Īrbitrage works similarly when it comes to electronics or computing. That guy who gives away money in all of his YouTube videos is likewise taking advantage of a similar disparity-he can make a ton of money through brand deals and ad revenue, and he can make more of it by spending some of that money in the most aggressively viral way possible. Or maybe there’s a quality issue that’s imperceptible to you but was enough to prevent that shirt from going to Neiman Marcus.Įither way, you saved a lot of money by going to the cheaper store that focuses less on aesthetics and customer service and more on turning over inventory.Īrbitrage drives entire business models-for example, the recent trend of companies that literally sell bulk returns to people to resell on eBay at a higher markup. Maybe there was a production overrun, or it was produced during the wrong season. In the case of these stores, you’re getting access to products that would cost much more at another store, but have issues that led to that product appearing in another market. If you’ve ever walked into a store like Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, or Ross, you probably are familiar with the concept of arbitrage-the idea that you can exploit weaknesses in an economic structure to come out ahead. (The Z220, for what it’s worth, generally uses older-but-still-plenty-fast consumer-grade CPUs other variants in the HP Z series use higher-end Xeon processors.) The basic concept behind upgrade arbitrage, and why it’s so effective Such sales are common, as these machines are no longer the fastest you can buy. A giant stack of old HP Z220 workstations, as recently highlighted on the surplus sales site GovDeals.

Used workstation pc