Once upon a time, scalpers were just folks who went to a ticket agency, possibly having waited in line (or paid someone else to wait for them), got as many tickets to the event (sports, concert, ...) as possible and then stood outside the event location trying to sell them for as much as the market would bear. An event that was not sold out would probably only get back the ticket price (or less). But an event that was sold out and very popular -- who knows the price that one could get. It was usually considered to be illegal but very difficult to enforce.
In current days, although "old-style" scalpers still exist, the tech scalpers have largely taken their place. Online purchases/access means online scalpers. Events for scalping exist in the same venue as brick-and-board. Tickets or products become available for sale at a specific, predetermined, time and place. OR tickets or products will become available at an unspecified time -- "hit and miss".
For the tech scalper, these events are met by automation -- or "bots". A bot will "hang around" for the appropriate time, or will do frequent snapshots of web pages to compare in order to find out when something is now available, and pounce. A human at a keyboard can do the same thing (or can make use of some of the same apps that tech scalpers use) but not nearly as promptly. And a human must be around when the event occurs -- the bots can be set up to do everything without further intervention by humans.
In attempts to make purchases, and access, fair -- limits are often imposed. "Only ten tickets per purchaser." Or, "only four widgets per session". For a human, that is successful. For a tech scalper, that just means that they need to clone and multiply. Limits per session? Have massive numbers of multiple sessions. Limits per purchaser? Have multiple accounts.
The purchaser, or tech scalper, has noticed the event and gotten in-line. The goal now is to determine the item to be purchased and check out as quickly as possible.
We have reached the point where different types of events have different requirements. In order to purchase a ticket, a choice of seat/ticket must be done. For speed, the "best seat available" option is usually open but not always. For a scarce item now available, there is usually only one choice.
The amount of time between noticing something is available and choosing it is the first critical amount of time and the tech scalper has the advantage. After choosing the item, there are two ways the seller can handle it. They can take the item out of inventory or they can just keep allowing items to be chosen as long as there are still items available that have not been purchased.
If the seller takes something out of inventory upon choosing, they run the risk of having it "tied up" and not available for sale to anyone else -- and the first person may choose to not do the final purchase. For sellers who choose this option, there is usually a specific time counter for the purchaser to complete the purchase before the item is released back to inventory. The time limit is not always explicit.
For sellers who leave it in inventory, the seller has the advantage that it is likely that, for popular items, all the items will be sold. The buyers, however, are in the situation where 500 items may be chosen 5000 times and the first 500 to finish the task of purchasing are the winners.
In this situation, the tech scalpers are the ultimate winners. Although a few of the humans might get a ticket or item, most of the purchases by the tech scalpers will succeed. Humans have possible opportunities only when there are more items than scalping "units" (number of active scalping programs times number of purchases possible per program). Without automation, humans cannot beat the tech scalpers if the scalping units exceed the number of items available except with the very best of luck.
Humans can improve their odds by being as ready as possible when the item becomes available by having to ONLY choose and buy. Even there, the human is at a disadvantage because of bandwidth limitations in which the tech scalper is likely to have a high-speed connection.
In my opinion, for scarce items, sellers should always do the time-out method and pull it out of inventory when chosen. Any other choice gives the "game" to the tech scalpers.
