rainking
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I agree.
I just feel like if you exchange the word sneaker for something else...car, bicycle, watch etc. etc...for the most part, this doesn't happen. Sure, there are limited cars and watches. But, for the most part you don't get exploited unless you are extremely anxious to possess the newest and latest. Shoes, like cars should degrade with use. In that sense, you are correct that the people in the culture are to blame. Especially because literally 50-75% of the culture are legitimate hypebeasts imo.
Nike is totally to blame for not doing what's necessary to curve the appetite for exclusivity. They never had to meet demand for any of their releases. But there's a big difference between 10,000 pairs and 100,000 pairs. Imo, there's just no excuse for it. Especial when it comes to OG air max 95s or griffey Max's or air max cb's or Kobe releases or (insert your favorite regular release that should've been mass produced here.)
It ain't nothing new. Kids were being killed for their air Jordan's in the late 80s and early 90s...Nike did nothing in spite of the massive amount of bad press.
Plus, back then the shoes were available. The robberies and shootings happened because people didn’t have money to buy them. Now we can’t buy them unless we’re fine with paying 50-100-percent (or more) markups.
The resellers and bots make it seem like there’s even fewer shoes produced than there truly is. Which leads to a lot of people being locked out from buying, which leads to complaints about scarcity, which leads to Vanessa getting bombarded, which leads to her asking Nike for help, which leads to Nike telling her to pound sand, which leads to her telling Nike oh yeah, then watch me leave. And now we have zero Kobes for anyone, resellers and fans alike.
Rad.