I wonder if the decision-maker could have been wealthy enough that thousands of dollars felt insignificant to them. At some point, you lose sight of how much things cost, because the answer is almost always "not much".

Reminds me of Jessica Walter's character in Arrested Development: "It's a banana, Michael - how much could it cost? Ten dollars?"

How many years till that's true

People in 2100 will laugh at that joke and think "that's way too cheap. What is she thinking!"

Has happened before:

https://www.theonion.com/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-bla...

Actually it's pretty genius. They probably made a killing, they went out being 80 million in the hole due to unpaid rebates and ended up paying out something like 2 cents on the dollar. I'm sure they got decent salaries and made money from upstream purchases.

Assuming no one here went to jail this is essentially a legal way to run a ponzi scheme.

If the buyer didn't care how much things cost, they'd buy the $500 TV at the shop, not through some crazy "$500 TV for $5000" scheme.

Rich people aren't idiots, I think the target customer for this thing is someone who's so price sensitive that they'll go to huge lengths to get a TV for free.

When a chore pays more than your day job, people often find a way to get it done.