I strongly dislike that you engaged in the shoe scalping arbitrage business, but at the same time really appreciate you sharing this information. Excellent writing covering a fascinating adventure!

Question: With the Twitter RSVPs, do you think Nike implemented automation to automatically give you the code when you responded with the correct code in a fraction of a second? If so it implies that on some level Nike was fine what you were doing.

Eventually Nike made changes into how they were giving out the codes, so they tried at least. E.g., 0 follower accounts could not gain a code. We switched to using accounts of my contact and his friends to solve this issue. I think the idea of adding a timer for artificial latency was also discussed, but I can't recall if we ever implemented it.

In general we thought that Nike was complicit to an extent. Especially with the on-site checkout and mining of product IDs, they could have cancelled orders done before they shared the link in public. I think on their end, it was a balance of guaranteeing a low supply while ensuring that normal customers did not feel like they were being screwed _all the time_. Yet, even nowadays with the SNKRS app some continue to call it a rigged ballot.

In hindsight, Nike is still positioned somehow uniquely in the sneaker community: it's not guaranteed that money alone will get you a pair. Compare this to luxury brands like Balenciaga, which retail sneakers with a price tag of $500-1000. With the latter everyone knows you have handed out a chunk of cash, but it's not the same thing as the story that you could have waited in line or woke up in the morning to enter a raffle, or been smart enough and early on to pay reseller prices to get a pair before stock ran out which you knew would become a coveted pair over time.