The market for used bikes has become a little like the wild-west in recent years, with an enormous number of used bikes flooding the market, in every sort of condition. There are at least a half-dozen people here in Los Angeles making a business out of buying and selling better-quality used bikes on the web--and mostly they're people who really don't care about bikes at all. For them, bikes are simply a source of income and no more. I expect there are plenty of these guys in New York too.. and who knows how many more there are doing it with greater or lesser financial effectiveness, below the radar, all around the country?
Seemed to me the poster was ranting about all the cheaper bikes out there, bikes with a lot of mechanical issues, being sold to people who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. I had no sense he was talking about the kinds of bikes that we concern ourselves with here, except perhaps tangentially, at most.
So, I can see where he's coming from, especially if he himself is trying to make a business of buying and selling used bicycles and feels like his business is being tainted by unscrupulous sellers who have no concern for what they're selling, or who they're selling to..
I dunno about you, but it occured to me some time ago that it takes quite a bit of experience and good instinct--and money--to turn a non-running cheaper bike--or a non-running expensive bike, for that matter--into something that can be used safely and comfortably and represents decent value. We've all done our share of that kind of thing, and it seldom makes financial sense to take a non-running cheaper bike to a bike-shop to have it refurbished. If you know what you're doing, you can make far better use of that money. Most people who buy a cheap used bike at a garage sale or from a re-seller have no clue what to do, or what it will take, to get that cheap bike running properly again.
I think that's what he was ranting about.
Charles Andrews Los Angeles
"everyone has elites; the important thing is to change them from time to time."
--Joseph Schumpeter, via Simon Johnson