Best damn buggy whips.

ratfink wrote on 2022-09-21, 15:26:

Best damn buggy whips.

Yes they are!

"We buy new floppy disks and recycle used ones."
...
"SALE! 50 pack New 1.44 MB 3.5" disks Only $59.95!"
Profit.

I'm not against any kind of legal business, but when someone tries to sell me something at a more than twice a market price and calls it "SALE"... No, thank you. 🙂

There are still businesses that use floppy disks so I think there still is a market I guess we have some old manufacturing machines that use them at my workplace.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-21, 15:57:

I'm not against any kind of legal business, but when someone tries to sell me something at a more than twice a market price and calls it "SALE"... No, thank you. 🙂

The Amiga hardware scene is way worse, maybe.
It doesn't charge for an arm and a leg, but both pairs of them. 😁

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-21, 15:57:

"We buy new floppy disks and recycle used ones." ... "SALE! 50 pack New 1.44 MB 3.5" disks Only $59.95!" Profit. […]
Show full quote

"We buy new floppy disks and recycle used ones."
...
"SALE! 50 pack New 1.44 MB 3.5" disks Only $59.95!"
Profit.

I'm not against any kind of legal business, but when someone tries to sell me something at a more than twice a market price and calls it "SALE"... No, thank you. 🙂

I got a brand new 100 pack of floppies while thrifting one time for $5. 🤣

Jo22 wrote on 2022-09-21, 16:20:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-21, 15:57:

I'm not against any kind of legal business, but when someone tries to sell me something at a more than twice a market price and calls it "SALE"... No, thank you. 🙂

The Amiga hardware scene is way worse, maybe.
It doesn't charge for an arm and a leg, but both pairs of them. 😁

Well, when someone charges sky high prices for something that I can't find at half a price around a corner, I have no problem. But when this very moment on eBay I can buy the same 50 pack Verbatim 3.5" floppies for $24.99 instead of $59.95, that's funny. 🙂

And their "recycling program" is even more funny - "RECYCLE 3.5" FLOPPY DISKS: We accept any quantity of diskettes. If you send more than 200 disks, we reimburse shipping based on media mail rates.". So if you want to send them for free less than 200 disks, you have to pay a shipping cost. And then they pack them with a plastic wrap and sell for $19.95.

They even don't remove old labels or sort them by the color or brand!!! 😄

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-21, 16:47:

recycled.jpg

They even don't remove old labels or sort them by the color or brand!!! 😄

Hm, right. But at least they're HD diskettes, so they never saw the throat of Amiga drives, which is good. 😁

Edit: On the other hand.. The sleeves are missing; there's no card board or paper included, to bind humidity.

Joakim wrote on 2022-09-21, 16:14:

There are still businesses that use floppy disks so I think there still is a market I guess we have some old manufacturing machines that use them at my workplace.

You would think at least one entity would keep some “old floppy manufacturing machines “ going so he could sell actual new floppies.

I’ve had NOS floppies “occasionally “ that are bad out of the box, usually the newest ones too, 🤣

Japan uses floppies for online banking, I vaguely remember.
They could get bank related information on floppies or something.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japan-struggling … d-fax-machines/

Edit: Since the article mentions fax machines..
We're still using one at home. It's a thermal paper telefax machine from the '80s.
If everything else fails, this thing gets documents through! 😊

Speaking of Japan still using fax machines, the Nintendo video game series Splatoon announces its monthly splatfest events via fax machine, even in the latest in the series (Splatoon 3) released this month. I always thought this was kind of a neat cultural reference.

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-09-22, 11:47:

Joakim wrote on 2022-09-21, 16:14:

There are still businesses that use floppy disks so I think there still is a market I guess we have some old manufacturing machines that use them at my workplace.

You would think at least one entity would keep some “old floppy manufacturing machines “ going so he could sell actual new floppies.

I’ve had NOS floppies “occasionally “ that are bad out of the box, usually the newest ones too, 🤣

No one left making the disks so what exists now is all that will ever exist.

And yeah, the later disks - budget ones especially - aren't great. About 10-15 years ago I bought a few thousand budget "Melody" brand NOS disks which have a defect rate of probably 10-20%. Most of the bad ones aren't completely unusable though - mark the bad sectors and they're fine for shuffling small files around. Only need so many scratch disks though and its kind of annoying hitting a few bad disks in a row when writing a set of disk images to physical disks.

Can't complain about those prices when this is a business that solely deals in floppy disks, has a decreasing or fixed inventory, and supplies many disks to "artists" who cause destruction to the disks or businesses who want a stable source of disks.

Anyone can go on eBay or to thrift stores and buy a 50 pack for $20 or whatever, but if you want to buy 50 disks every month or 500 disks every month and be guaranteed a low failure rate, this guy's your man.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-09-22, 22:53:

Can't complain about those prices when this is a business that solely deals in floppy disks, has a decreasing or fixed inventory, and supplies many disks to "artists" who cause destruction to the disks or businesses who want a stable source of disks.

Anyone can go on eBay or to thrift stores and buy a 50 pack for $20 or whatever, but if you want to buy 50 disks every month or 500 disks every month and be guaranteed a low failure rate, this guy's your man.

How exactly he can guarantee a low failure rate of sealed new old stock diskettes that were never opened? 🙂

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-23, 12:02:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-09-22, 22:53:

Can't complain about those prices when this is a business that solely deals in floppy disks, has a decreasing or fixed inventory, and supplies many disks to "artists" who cause destruction to the disks or businesses who want a stable source of disks.

Anyone can go on eBay or to thrift stores and buy a 50 pack for $20 or whatever, but if you want to buy 50 disks every month or 500 disks every month and be guaranteed a low failure rate, this guy's your man.

How exactly he can guarantee a low failure rate of sealed new old stock diskettes that were never opened? 🙂

If the new old stock diskette retail boxes were part of a lot of boxes, maybe even still in original shipping boxes, opening and testing a few random samples from that lot would probably be a good indicator for the entire lot.

AFAIK, customs, food safety regulatory agencies, etc use thst kind of methodology.

darry wrote on 2022-09-23, 12:25:

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-23, 12:02:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-09-22, 22:53:

Can't complain about those prices when this is a business that solely deals in floppy disks, has a decreasing or fixed inventory, and supplies many disks to "artists" who cause destruction to the disks or businesses who want a stable source of disks.

Anyone can go on eBay or to thrift stores and buy a 50 pack for $20 or whatever, but if you want to buy 50 disks every month or 500 disks every month and be guaranteed a low failure rate, this guy's your man.

How exactly he can guarantee a low failure rate of sealed new old stock diskettes that were never opened? 🙂

If the new old stock diskette retail boxes were part of a lot of boxes, maybe even still in original shipping boxes, opening and testing a few random samples from that lot would probably be a good indicator for the entire lot.

AFAIK, customs, food safety regulatory agencies, etc use thst kind of methodology.

Very interesting guess. But I'd rather buy two sealed new old stock diskettes packs of the same manufacturer from eBay for the price of one pack with this guy's "guarantee" instead.🙂

Yes, some people shop around. Other people want it "now" and will be willing to pay a higher price. Or a stable supply, or decent packaging, or a supplier they trust, or a website that works. And so on.

ratfink wrote on 2022-09-23, 18:29:

Yes, some people shop around. Other people want it "now" and will be willing to pay a higher price. Or a stable supply, or decent packaging, or a supplier they trust, or a website that works. And so on.

If there weren't at any given second tons of new old stock 3.5" floppies that are available on eBay for half of their price, I would agree with you.

And regarding stable supply, If they had bought a floppy disks production line I would agree with you in this regard too. But how exactly they can provide a stable supply without being able to manufacture them?

I'm not against their business, but I can't find even one reason to buy exactly the same product for twice a market price.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-09-23, 19:26:

But how exactly they can provide a stable supply without being able to manufacture them?

Because they have a warehouse full of them and the demand is not high enough to draw it down quickly enough to call the supply unstable.

It's really useless to argue about whether they should lower their prices when obviously they are doing just fine as a business and anyone who wants something cheaper can just go to eBay. They're serving their market, eBayers are serving theirs. Everyone should be happy here.