What does that supposed to even mean ? There is no virtue in needlessly waiting for something in a line. Assigning virtue to such inefficiency is dangerous.
I am pretty sure people who are buying his pens would find their time lot more valuable (2 years in this case) than more price.
Buyers do not have a choice. It is either wait or don't buy. However if you create an auction system, you would know how much these people are willing to wait.
> why is this dangerous?
Economic inefficiencies lead to wastage. In this case people might put themselves on waiting list only to buy them for $150 and then sell it to someone for $500. The democratic virtue here is thrown out of the window and you have needlessly now employed a middleman who adds no real value to the process but as a remedy to the virtue signaling of the manufacturer.
Reminds of all bad things that happened when US government tried to subsidize baby formula.
If you have an item to sell and if people are willing to pay for it more than the price, if you do not increase the price someone buys it cheap and simply sells it to the highest bidder making a profit.
This is a bit like low cost government subsidized housing in bay area. Joe gets it but then rents to Kumar and continue to live as homeless. Now you have subsidized Kumar. It is dangerous in a sense, it assigns virtue to bad economic sense, creates incentives for needless middleman and prevents goods from going to people who really need it.
What does that supposed to even mean ? There is no virtue in needlessly waiting for something in a line. Assigning virtue to such inefficiency is dangerous.
I am pretty sure people who are buying his pens would find their time lot more valuable (2 years in this case) than more price.