Lottery system and progressive taxes...
...are of the same ilk, IMO. They both redistribute the wealth from those willing to do whatever it takes to those who sit back and whine because they have not. E*Trade definitely had some problems with their FCFS system, since there are many occasions when non-flippers with early timestamps didn't get shares. But with the limited time window there was at least an increased chance of participation for those willing to put in the work. The stock market has never been "fair" and it never will be, so that's not even the argument. All of the brokerages now using the lottery system are doing it from a business standpoint, because now they'll be able to say, "As long as you don't flip, each and every one of you has exactly the same chance as anybody else" and draw in more and more customers. From the brokerages' standpoint, fairness is a non-issue.
The result, however, is unfair. It's not fair to take away an advantage gained by work, and yes, those of us who got the early timestamps worked for them. I read in one of the articles about all this that someone was upset because they had always gotten their offers in within the first 30 minutes and still never got any shares. How naive. I remember being the same way in the early days, but you know what? I took the time and spent the effort to find out how the game was played, and have gotten in on 7 IPOs since. I don't have high hopes for getting in on 7 more during the next couple of months. |
