Re: FIRST Choice is Profoundly Flawed
 

Part of the problem with this discussion—and don't get me wrong, we need to be having this discussion—is that we don't really know why FIRST Choice is the way it is.

I think I've seen a couple of explanations of why it started, and all are probably partly right. But to add to those, I think it's a pretty reasonable conjecture that FIRST Choice was conceived to deal with insufficient supply of traditional KOP parts. By offering them up first-come, first-served, the appearance of equality could be maintained, without actually distributing equal quantities of KOP material.

There's nothing fundamentally unfair about that—after all, teams are being encouraged to react to limited supply by revealing their preferences in terms of what they select first and most frequently. That's how capitalism works. But that's also how market failure works (a concept that goes hand-in-hand with capitalism in the real world). Teams with insufficient information, motivation or capability to make a rational choice are at a disadvantage. In any market where pure rational decision-making cannot be presumed, there is likely to be a degree of market failure.

Contrast that with the commons (i.e. a thing composed of shared goods which need to be protected against overexploitation). Teams assuming FIRST Choice is part of the commons will naturally try to avoid hoarding, because they see intrinsic value in preserving supply for others. This is a nice thing to do, in theory, but feels really bad when others don't abide by the same precepts, and proceed to exploit it to the fullest extent. Why save for others if others are just going to be greedy? Also, how do you know how much you can rightfully take? To do that, you need to know something about the preferences of the other teams—but since there's no explicit communication, and no implicit signalling through market-based demand, it's easy to accidentally take too much or too little, even with good intentions.

I suppose FIRST could take a principled stand and say that the correct economic model is something for the teams to figure out on their own, by consensus. But since that's not going to advance their stated priorities very quickly (though it does have an upside), I'd much rather see them come down with some ground rules. Decide on some basic principles, and then let teams loose to do anything those rules permit.

If the rule is a free-for-all, then teams need to be ready, and FIRST needs to help them do so. If the rule is a commons, then teams need to discuss how to exploit it equitably and then play fair. If it's something else, then FIRST needs to describe it in terms that don't leave doubt about what's appropriate behaviour.


On another note, we need to have a discussion about whether the prices on FIRST Choice are intended to represent the cost to acquire the same item on the open market. I contend that that is a faulty assumption. While sometimes the prices might correspond, FIRST has enough deals with suppliers to be able regularly to offer things at non-market rates. FIRST could also be encouraging us to buy, by discounting some items.

Complaining that the an item is over- or under-valued on FIRST Choice implies a judgment of what the actual price should be. And you can't make that judgment unless you have a system for comparing FIRST Choice prices to those on the open market. So if you feel FIRST's valuation is wrong, you need to tell us why.