Is Demand Subjective?

[slothleigh]

Is Demand Subjective?: A friendly debate.


no, but seriously. I want to hear other people's opinions on this subject, genuinely.

I've been thinking a lot about the whole "Demand is Subjective" term that people on chickensmoothie tend to toss around when referring to ex-list pets, or responding to people asking to factor "Demand" in to trade fairness.

This has always confused me, because while I understand the overarching concept that personal ranking of demand vary person to person, meaning it can be hard to narrow down the specifics of one pet's value compared to another.

While this is true, the idea of Demand being subjective has always seemed... blatantly false to me.
In a general sense, as far as I understand it, Demand is in a large way not subjective.
For example, pets like the Shima Longtail and the August PPS hold a lot of value to a high number of people. Demand is something that should be tracked in trends. Even if you personally don't like those pets, you know that to a large portion of the site, they hold value disproportionate to their dates and/or rarity.
In the same way, pets like the Sunback or Black Advent can be identified in a trend as often being more popular than their littermates. Well, the Sunback might be a stretch. But, the Black Advent for sure.

Of course, this isn't to say you can dictate every trade based on demand. Not everyone will trade you an OMGSR for the August PPS, because of course they wont! But I also don't think "Demand is Subjective" is a very accurate term to throw around. Preference is subjective, sure. And it's definitely accurate to say it's hard to pinpoint the specifics of demand.
If someone asks you if, based on demand, this is a fair trade- you're obviously not going to be able to help them. There's no way to gauge that.
Unless you wanted to go based on the species, because I think an argument could be made that Dragons are in higher demand than horses, on an overall trend- but then, lots of people like horses. And the rodent is a whole separate argument, because people often say that they don't like rodents, or specifically don't like rats. So how can you tell what rodents are and aren't in demand? Anyway. Not the point.


I'm not trying to convince anyone that Demand should be considered in every trade. But, like, more so I just wanted to see if anyone agreed with me that technically Demand isn't subjective.
This post is especially made with the fact in mind that I've heard a good number of people say "Demand is Entirely Subjective" which is... entirely false, to me.

Then again, I could also raise the point that The List was basically/partially the result of trying to categorize pets with demand in mind, but by this point I'm just having a debate with myself.

so, with that said...

RULES:
haha just kidding. The rules are the site rules.
I just wanted to remind you to be civil. Of course, I don't know if anyone will reply to this post at all, I just wanted to talk to someone about it and I don't have any friends on chickensmoothie.


Also, just for clarity- you probably wont see me post again on this thread. Not to bump, not to argue, and not to respond to anyone. I'm just looking to expand my point of view, if anyone cares to post a reply to this thread. If I really have something more to say, I'll edit the original post. But I probably wont. And also you probably wont read this, and it probably wont matter because I have a hard time imagining anyone taking the time to talk about the specifics of virtual pet economics with me.

Edit 1: Maybe the only edit that will happen. I just wanted to say, if CS had the ability to like comments- all three of these first responses would get one from me. I was really happy to see that I'm not the only person who cares about... virtual pet economics. I think Chickensmoothie has a really unique trading dynamic, because of the limited pets, random factors, how long the site has been around, particular designs, and a large number of other things! CS is awesome, and it's super validating and enjoyable to read other people's takes on the issue. Thank you for expanding my point of view via friendly conversation.

[This Kane U Speak Of]

You're right and you should say it. Supply and demand is what markets are literally based on. Things are worth more when in demand because there quite literally aren't enough to go around in a different way than base rarities. The base rarity lets us know how many EXIST while demand is letting us know in general how many are on the open market.

When a pet is a dreamy for a bunch of people, they aren't going to trade it away when they get it, decreasing the supply on something that already has high demand because people enjoy the design of it and want to collect it, hence why it's viewed as a dreamy by many people.

Demand is ESSENTIAL to an economy like this because it's 100% based on what people are looking for. It's rare that people are just collecting pets they don't like if it's not to eventually save up for a pet that they really do, or have a complete collection.

Even if we pretended demand didn't exist, it would still work it's way into negotiations purely because we're working around scarcity economics

[Tailish]

You're right that demand technically isn't subjective, but also I disagree.

Site-wide demand is a definite, almost measurable thing that is arguably the most important factor in the entire CS economy, exactly like Kane said. It is false to call it subjective. However, I think it's necessary.

It's practically speaking impossible to have accurate, up-to-date measures of site-wide demand that aren't influenced by individual user demand. Case in point: the toxics and recent values. And especially since so many users are young, it's difficult to come to a proper consensus as to how site-wide demand should be measured in the first place. Is it some function of how frequently pets are traded? Is it how many people have them listed as dreamies? Is it how much the average user would be willing to overpay from the "listed value" (w big big quotes around that)? I have no idea, and I think nobody really does.

And there's also the question of who gets to "decide" what demand is: if it isn't practically very measurable, who gets to say "nah, the Green Sorbet has more demand than the Blue Sorbet, and that's an objective fact"? ngl consensus do be kinda slow tho for precise & concrete valuation

Since it's not practically possible to have an objective demand, it's a lot easier and a lot more productive for trading to say "demand is subjective, talk to your partner, ask the fft, maybe look up some trades on the forums," and leave it at that. You mentioned that most users have a general picture of which pets are high demand; I think that a sort of vague awareness of "hey, a lot of people like the August PPS" is good enough in most cases. This is also why I like Loelya's Demand Cloud. It might not be super accurate, but eh.

y'all virtual pet economics are hecking fascinating i could write a paper except i couldn't bc i do physics & literature which is;;; not econ soooo i have no clue

[Loelya]

I'm runnin around too much today to get super into this conversation (which I'd like to) but I'd like to present two points and a brief overview of them:

1) I do think Demand as an economic factor is subjective.
2) That doesn't mean it's not an important factor.

Scientifically, the quality of being subjective means you cannot measure a factor, or there's not an agreed-upon-method of measuring it. As Tailish pointed out, if you were going to "measure" demand, would you do it by frequency of trades? number of wishlist faves? there is no concrete way to measure How Much Demand a pet has.

Demand is basically how popular a pet is, and popularity fluctuates. Compare this to rarity, which fluctuates a tiny bit depending on which players with which pets are active and actively trading, but has at least a partial measurability thanks to the rarity system onsite and the tags that go along with each pet.

Demand/popularity is decided by the trading community, and largely, by the "richest" players (or the ones who have the most valuable/expensive trading fodder.) If 100 newbies say they like the plains zebra better than they like the raven, but 10 older players with hundreds of old rares and/or dozens of omgsrs say they like the raven better than the plains zebra, then the raven is going to be viewed as the more popular/more demanded pet, because the ones who could actually feasibly trade for it all say they value it more.

But technically, in this hypothetical scenario, while more players want the zebra, they couldn't make a "fair" offer for it because they don't have the fodder, so their opinions don't really get counted as much. That's a huge reason demand is so subjective. Whereas you could have those same 10 older players insist and insist that the Raven is objectively more "valuable" than the zebra, but the zebra is omgsr, and the raven is only very rare. No matter how many players say they value the raven more than the zebra, the zebra still has the rarer tag. In this case, the raven is more demanded (a subjective value), but the zebra is rarer (an objective value.)

Demand as an important factor

I personally like the Zebra way more than the Raven, I'll say that now. But if I'm going to go give advice on the fair trade thread, I am absolutely going to tell another player that the Raven has a very high market value/demand, and that its demand value is currently resting slightly above the Zebra. I would also caution the player to mind the rarity tags and that the zebra might have more objective value, of course. But I would not simply withhold current demand information from someone because I think demand is subjective.

To completely ignore "demand" value and give advice based solely on rarity wouldn't work in economies where supply and demand have such a vital interaction. there would be no way to get the entire site to agree to trade solely based on rarity, and there are always going to be pets that are super rare but aren't valued as highly as less rare pets with more popular designs.

I'm starting to lose my train of thought but basically, yes, by the technical definition, demand is a "subjective" value, but that doesn't mean its not important, and I personally wouldn't give advice without taking it into account.

[Trull22]

what isn't subjective lol

[This Kane U Speak Of]

what isn't subjective lol

I'm a philosophy major and this both made me laugh and silently scream because you're So Right

[Asvoria]

Yes, demand should be subjective to a certain extend.
No, the current market value demand is not subjective anymore, because there are standard norms of demand that have remained too rigid over the time and are a value that can only be increased but refuses to drop.
Demand is supposed to be something versatile and variable that can be influenced and edited on personal desire, but that is not what I am seeing around here atm.

How do we fix this?
People have forgotten that pet value is something made up of demand and rarity.
Rarity is always the same, there are enough guides that are based on facts. Demand is something that is personal and applied on top of rarity and it should be influenced and balanced, so that both trading partners achieve an "overpay addon to the actual rarity" that they feel good with.
The list has completely muddled those two factors and the community has a hard time gathering opinions to find how they personally value such a pet. The current state of CS kind of resolved around people working with the list vs. those who try out new stuff, whilst there are still some players that use the time to affect the market with pushed values, which only works because no one understands what is going on.

[Wookieinmashoo]

I'm on the opposite fence and will state that demand on this site is almost entirely subjective. People trade more for pets for designs they like, or designs they know the people on the site like. This is why people trade so little for rats. People generally don't like their designs which is why they go for so little despite some of them being incredibly rare.

[slothleigh]

I'm on the opposite fence and will state that demand on this site is almost entirely subjective. People trade more for pets for designs they like, or designs they know the people on the site like. This is why people trade so little for rats. People generally don't like their designs which is why they go for so little despite some of them being incredibly rare.

Couldn't resist responding to this one.
This is exactly what I'm talking about, but though. You know rats have a "general" lower value. Yes, it is subjective in a personal preference sense where in people will trade more for their favorites. But saying "or designs they know people on the site like" is exactly what I'm referring to when I say demand is not subjective. Not so much that it 'isn't' subjective, but that the trends like rats being unpopular and certain pets being more popular can be tracked.

Even if you personally liked rats, you would likely have an easier time getting them because their demand is low.