It’s not the jailbreak that makes these phones worth this much $$$-- it’s the expired AT&T contract, allowing these phones to be signed up to any other carrier. That’s worth money to a lot of people, even for an “old” phone.
Of course, that market is liable to collapse now that Verizon is a recognized carrier for a first-run iPhone.
I too have seen this, not just on eBay, but on specialty auction sites like Gunbroker where someone will pay way too much for a gun that may not be super common, but that if they waited say, a month, would have the opportunity to buy it for the normal price.
Short of the money laundering thing, I have always chalked it up to people with too much money with an emotional attachment to a particular item, even if the item is available elsewhere (that they are unaware of because they don’t research it) or is out of date (because they want the outdated technology.)
I would honestly say my parents are consumers that fall into this category. They have a decent amount of money, and like the gadgets they like. That said, if one broke after several years, they would want the exact same model as it took them forever to learn how to use the one they have, and they have always “heard eBay is the place to find bargains”. Combine those two elements with the desire to have it “now” and you have a sale of obsolete technology for way too much money.
That sounds like normal business practice to me. Do you think your local retailers all pay the same price for their merchandise? Or do you think they game the wholesaler for the best price then leverage their profit by selling for pennies below what their competitors paid more for?
The banks have been mooching off Uncle Sam quite a bit lately, but that hasn’t stopped them from paying you a small dividend for the privilege of loaning your money to someone else at an interest rate ten times higher.
It’s how business works. Visit the Diamond District in NYC sometime, you’ll see wheeling and dealing with such finesse that it could qualify for the Olympics.
Even more so, unlocked iPhones.
That AT&T doesn’t let Apple sell unlocked iPhones, even at full price, is a travesty. Especially if you are in a market that nas no AT&T service at all, and can’t get one openly, because AT&T will let no-one sell the iPhone there.
I’m glad I live in Canada. We have five carriers competing to sell us the things, and available officially-unlocked phones.
Edit: if Verizon starts selling a CDMA version of the iPhone, that will change. But not necessarily as much as it might seem. Markets with no AT&T service will still need to have Verizon service, or the people there will still be out of luck for official phones. I suspect that the CDMA iPhone, if it exists, will be exclusive to Verizon; CDMA is much less friendly to things like unlocking that GSM is.