The fact that points can be purchased at a certain price has nothing to do with how much value in points something can auction for. You can auction a $5 gift card for "$50 worth of points" or 500ish points. So it's much less expensive to list stuff for points than it would be to buy them directly. The 37" LCD tv isn't worth $2,200+... The people who have that many points haven't invested that much money worth of stuff either so it evens out. Listia is a great way to trade stuff for points to buy stuff later. Just a barter system with a flowing economy