[crc32]

Great comment - the concept you speak of can be described as an "information asymmetry" or more broadly as "bounded rationality" as opposed to econ 101 theories which often assume "perfect information" or perfect rationality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

I think really only a rabid free-marketer (as opposed to all economists as you imply in the first sentence) would expect the market to self correct on something like this.

[Balanceinfinity]

Thanks, I think the best way to think of this is that with better competition in the primary market, we can expect more information about secondary costs to be available at the time of purchase (and the hope is that the competitors will compete most of these away at the time of sale). I don't pretend this will likely happen at 100%, but there should be some of this in most functioning markets without huge information lacunas (such as healthcare).