I'd rather devote our community efforts to a price tracker that sits on top of existing platforms (Reddit, Ebay, Geekhack, Deskthority).
If you know about StockX, then I hope you have heard of its hidden negative influences, how it is slowly but effectively killing the soul of sneaker culture.
Read that article, and then come back and tell me if that’s what you want to happen to this silly niche hobby of ours, turning it into a pure engine of hypebeasts and day-one flipping.
It’s already happening now. Good examples I’ve seen recent are TGR Keyboards, GMK Olivia, and GMK Serika.
There's a distinct different between day one flipping (buying an item of limited supply and immediately selling it for markup), and participating in a GMK group buy that has room for everyone. Anyone could tie up $130 ordering a keyset during the group-buy period, then sell it once sheep people see photos on r/mk and see other people liking a colorway they previously scoffed at. This isn't about buy bots or deception, simply people with more money to spend on keysets or more faith in a particular designer's vision (and are willing to fund the production of things they like directly). GMK Serika is a special case, because it was clearly a great set (by a designer who clearly knows how to match samples and renders) but everyone blew their budget on Laser.
TGR boards, artisans and other FCFS or raffle sales will always be plagued by demands radically outstripping supply, but that only encourages other people to start making their own customs and artisans, but Alice hunters deserve far more sympathy than the 'wait and see' crowd.
Serika was also run at a time when the GMK keycap market (and the community as a whole) was smaller, and there was a lot of feather ruffling over the last-minute addition of Japanese sublegends. That turned a lot of people off (including myself). Nowadays it would probably have sold 500 units and it wouldn't be fetching more than $250 aftermarket.
If a few chumps wanna pay $600 for some plastic it's probably not the worst thing. The real issue is that it keeps other would-be buyers out of the market, because instead of selling at a reasonable price, potential sellers will start holding and waiting for another "big" buyer, which dries up the supply and ironically therefore drives up the "natural" price towards the silly flip price.
Will this be exacerbated by a StockX-for-Keyboards? Maybe. Part of the appeal of GH, r/mm, etc. is that it keeps out causal flippers. Yes, this is gatekeeping. Yes, it's worth it. If you make trading too easy, too friendly, you let in all kinds of garbage that otherwise would be kept out by the burden of making a Reddit account, building karma, taking timestamp photos, etc.
That said, with a few individual exceptions people tend to sell keyboards before buying a keyboard, especially when it's an item that has an inflated price. Let's not forget that money is ultimately a store of value -- let's say you're willing to trade your Duck Blackbird and your TGR 910 for a Jane v2, but nobody wants to take that trade? You just sell the Blackbird and the 910 and then hunt for anyone willing to sell you a Jane V2 for a similar price to what you just made. Same is true for keysets and artisans.
I won't say that some prices haven't been inflated due to media/forum hype and FOMO, but I wonder to what extent these are really people just dropping cash out of their pocket, versus "indirect trades" where the cash is really just a temporary value store.
As much as I love the idea, I think the central feature of a marketplace is that everyone goes there. I know you want to test your programming ability on a real project - and that's commendable, I'm not sure how good of an idea it is to fracture the market.
Here's why I'm okay with mechmarket:
1. Everyone already has a reddit account
2. Very easy to point newcomers to /r/mechmarket rather than having them sign up for another account elsewhere
3. Having to check 2 sites rather than crawling /new would be even more tedious
4. The site still belongs to Reddit, so owners trying to monetize against the will of the users is basically impossible.
But hey, don't let me stop you - maybe we'll all just end up abandoning mechmarket and joining AfterKeys. I'm excited to see what this turns into, just thought I'd give you some points to overcome.
In addition to this, it's somewhat easy to vet an account by looking at their posting history across the Reddit platform. Not to mention several years now of trade history. You make a new platform, you potentially throw that all away.
