Derek, what is your relationship with sneakers?

It's a tumultuous one.

Derek Johnson is a designer at Slate, and he's very into sneakers.

Whenever some cool new sneakers being released, Derek knows all about it.

Right now, he's got his eye on an upcoming drop of some limited edition Nike Air Max Ones, made in collaboration with an Amsterdam streetwear boutique. He's hoping to buy them online before they sell out. They did a pair of orange ones that sold out very quickly last week, and they're coming out with a pair of blue ones. So I want the blue ones. Actually, I like better than the orange ones.

So we'll see what happens.

What do you think your odds are of actually being able to buy them?

Zero.

Zero?

Zero.

The problem with buying limited edition sneakers online these days is that the competition is

incredibly fierce, maybe unnaturally fierce.

If you're going to buy online, you have to be fast, like literally like fast with your fingers

and typing things because there are people out there that have found ways around that.

What are these ways around it?

Bots. They're called bots.

Bots are a special, clever kind of software.

Much faster than any human sneaker head could ever click on the correct shoe size and enter

their credit card number and whatnot, bots can swoop in and just buy everything in the

blink of an eye. And then the people who control the bots will put those sold out shoes on the

resale market at much higher prices. So a limited run Adidas sneaker priced at $250 might get

swallowed up by bots, and later that same day, you'll see those sneakers on eBay for $600.

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