There was a story of a gasoline shortage in a small town, and the owner of one of the gas station found that he was completely full, and would not be affected by the short term lack of supply. He promptly decided to jack up the price to ten times what he usually charged. Some people had no choice but to gas up at his prices, and he made in profit in a few days what he made in a few months… until the shortage was over and priced went back down… The forced buyers didn’t picket, or complain at his questionably unethical, (but certainly opportunistic), behavior.  He can charge whatever he wants, this is a free country, at least in theory.  The buyers just did what they were suppose to: they voted with their dollars. The people remembered what he did, and they purposely drove across town to other gas stations, until the man was completely out of business.

It’s not really odd that in today’s economy, the storage of 0′s and 1′s are as inelastic as they are, but countless millions just NEEDED certain amount of hard drive storage the past six months.  In life is absolutely requisite sometimes. Seagate is in a similar situation as the gas station owner; you may not know this, but – due to the higher physical elevation of Seagate’s factory in Thailand, Seagate was not affected by the floods. And they have other manufacturing facilities around the world. So instead of gobbling up market share, becoming the hero, they lowered the warranty length (from 5 years to 1), and raised prices. I’m not talking 20-30% increase. I’m talking 200%-300%. Two years ago I defended Seagate before, but now…. that’s what I call corporate rape.

Pricing history from Newegg:

Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB – up 328%

Seagate SV35 Series ST2000VX002 2TB – up 263%

Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS 2TB – up 255%

Seagate Constellation ES 2TB – up 195%

And Seagate and (Western Digital too) are making RECORD profits in this “dramatic downturn.”

So, when a company forcabley rapes you, just because the opportunity arises, is not a company you should do business with in the future, in my opinion.  As hard drive prices continue to lower, remember what Seagate did, just because they found you bend over and tied down. Remember to vote with your dollars.

News is now floating around that it was fake , and I bet you a few months or even years down the road their will be price fixing allegations and settlements, of which you will see pennies from after the lawyers get through with their share.   Alas, there is nothing that can be done but VOTE!

Ps. Graphs were made with an excellent Chrome Extension called “The Camelizer” which tracks prices on Newegg and Amazon.com and others.