Numlock News: December 2, 2020 • Masons, Monoliths, Mandalorians
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By Walt Hickey Streetwear The resale market in North America for sneakers and streetwear is worth over $2 billion annually. With that much money on the line an arsenal of sophisticated bots at the disposal of speculators has flooded the market, and made the once-simple experience of “buying some rad sneakers” a John Henry-esque grind for the honest hypebeasts among us. Simple Captchas are no match for them — rudimentary commercially available AI image recognition tools can solve 70 percent of Captchas, per a 2016 study — and the robot army is not stopping at shoes and Supreme. As online scalping becomes more profitable and reliable — about 90 percent of website traffic on the designer shoe sites during flash sales are bots waiting to buy — the bots are not just getting the new kicks before you do, but buying the PlayStation 5 before Santa can.
Numlock News: December 2, 2020 • Masons, Monoliths, Mandalorians
Numlock News: December 2, 2020 • Masons…
Numlock News: December 2, 2020 • Masons, Monoliths, Mandalorians
By Walt Hickey Streetwear The resale market in North America for sneakers and streetwear is worth over $2 billion annually. With that much money on the line an arsenal of sophisticated bots at the disposal of speculators has flooded the market, and made the once-simple experience of “buying some rad sneakers” a John Henry-esque grind for the honest hypebeasts among us. Simple Captchas are no match for them — rudimentary commercially available AI image recognition tools can solve 70 percent of Captchas, per a 2016 study — and the robot army is not stopping at shoes and Supreme. As online scalping becomes more profitable and reliable — about 90 percent of website traffic on the designer shoe sites during flash sales are bots waiting to buy — the bots are not just getting the new kicks before you do, but buying the PlayStation 5 before Santa can.