I wouldn’t call scalping “good” necessarily, but in the case of the Steam Controller, I’ve seen an awful lot of people incensed about scalping whose commentary overpowers more interesting discussion in Steam Controller communities. I’m not convinced scalping is a huge problem for the Steam Controller, a few dozen silly‐priced Ebay auctions notwithstanding. Valve’s current solutions seem helpful to me, but I see outrage threads where people advocate DRM‐locking controllers to accounts to prevent resale, or enforcing price caps on sales, both of which are far worse than allowing scalping to exist, and does suggest some lack of economic understanding (since both “solutions” would simply make Steam Controllers harder to come by).

You're right I probably should be more charitable, but I don't see any other way to read GP other than them denying basic economics. The comment that they were replying to did not say it was a good thing and they liked it. Sure it may have been implicit to some, but if GP was objecting to that, they should have used something other than the word no.

If they were responding to this part:

> why would you work hard to create value for others in a system like that?

Then their answer of no makes no sense, so I don't see a way to be much more charitable