Google's altruistic Ion giveaway instantly rewarded with blind greed

Call it a sign of the times, call it a Google I/O attendee who just didn't really like the Ion, call it an overabundance of Western-style capitalism, call it man's almost instinctive need to generate profit -- whatever the case, one of the 4,000 specially-branded Ions given away at the conference this week is now available to the highest bidder. Never mind the fact that it's an I/O special edition, though -- outside of this particular device, we're not sure where you can find a 1700MHz 3G HTC Magic at any price, so we're sure this is going to be worth plenty of cold, hard cash to plenty of people who aren't in San Francisco at the moment. Oh, and don't worry if you miss out on this one; we'd be shocked if there weren't others in the pipeline.

[Via TmoToday]

[LessThanDug Posted May 28th 2009 7:25AM]

Capitalism = the greatest thing ever. I'd dump this for as much money as I could get for it as well.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2009 7:26AM]

Does this really surprise anyone? I wouldn't waste my money on that. I believe T-mobile will release the Magic soon, so why spend $1000 on a phone that really only could be fully utilized on T-mobile and not on any other network. I don't see this getting many bids. But i could be wrong some people feel the need to spend $ on stuff like this to each their own.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2009 9:35AM]

The auction no longer has a buy it now. Does that mean the seller thinks he can get more than 1000$?

[aoi tsuki Posted May 28th 2009 11:02AM]

The Buy It Now option disappears from items in certain categories (electronics being a big one) once someone places a bid.

[aoi tsuki Posted May 28th 2009 11:04AM]

1. Attend industry event
2. Collect shwag
3. ????
4. Profit

If anything, this just raises exposure to his auction, upping the number of potential bids.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2009 11:17AM]

The guy wants to make some money, what's the big deal? An off-contract - not unlocked - iPhone 3G is 700 bucks. One guy sells a limited-run phone for 1000 and engadget complains about "an over abundance of capitalism." If someone wants to pay 5000 bucks, let them. Either way, it's not really your problem or your money. Pathetic, man... really.

[LessThanDug Posted May 28th 2009 5:16PM]

Haha, sounds to me like Chris leans pretty hard to the left. Otherwise, why even take the time to come up with the statement, "Call it a sign of the times, call it a Google I/O attendee who just didn't really like the Ion, call it an overabundance of Western-style capitalism, call it man's almost instinctive need to generate profit..." when you could've just said something like, looking to pick up an HTC Magic before anyone else? Hell, it's not an iPhone so you'd probably do the same too. Shit, I'd dump it and get myself an N97.

[(Unverified) Posted May 28th 2009 5:26PM]

Good call on the N97.