hushed wrote:
People on the top of the list should receive their's first. Those on the top of the list have been waiting the longest.
What's fair in this case is subjective. The first-in-first-out principle you're espousing is only objectively fair in the circumstance where everyone going in is equal, but the re-sellers/modders with large orders have unbalanced things. There is a qualitative difference between a business interest and a personal interest.
If supplies are limited and re-sellers have ordered so many that almost no one else will get one from the initial shipment then rationing may be called for (i.e. those who ordered 100's will only get part of their order from the first batch, and have to wait for subsequent batches to get the rest.) I've seen this scenario go both ways in the past, and I've been both the guy trying to buy up all the inventory for business reasons and the guy just trying to get one for personal use.
Going with a first-come-first-served process without thoughtfully evaluating the situation - meaning that you let resellers soak up all of the available inventory because they were first in line - usually leads to a considerably greater number of unhappy customers, while going the "one-per-customer" route tends to frustrate a much smaller group of people but a smaller group of people with potentially greater buying power. In this case the risk of those resellers going elsewhere with their business is non-existent - the greatest risk is that they drop their plans to purchase altogether, but that's only detrimental in a situation where you aren't guaranteed to sell whatever inventory that they don't buy and I don't see that as a large risk here.
Logically, if the initial supply is limited "one-per-customer" is generally considered the best move and it absolutely fits this situation.