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The paranoid conspiratorial tone of TFA is a symptom of what's wrong with the Internet and therefore humanity: > The big brands that are ultimately at stake (S

The paranoid conspiratorial tone of TFA is a symptom of what's wrong with the Internet and therefore humanity: > The big brands that are ultimately at stake (Sony, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD) all talk about “demand exceeding supply”. Oh, really? [New paragraph.] It is a rather evasive explanation, without any communication about the actual state of their supply and production lines… The dark secret? Not only is demand GREATER THAN supply, but supply is — wait for it! — LESS THAN demand! OMG, they've been covering this up the whole time! And not only that, current events and world affairs are contributing to this situation! When will the sheeple wake up?!

colejohnson66 6y ago
You mentioned this briefly, but: I think the big problem is the stay-at-home orders combined with massive improvements in technology results in tons more people wanting to upgrade immediately than initially expected (based on previous releases). It wouldn’t make sense for Nvidia to produce less than the demand on purpose because that results in less money. If we take the view of companies want to maximize profit, it would make sense that they’d try to fulfill demand. Another big problem is scalpers and websites not doing enough to stop it. They create an artificial scarcity so they can make a quick buck. Sure, a PS5 isn’t “essential” like toilet paper is, but it’s still a dick thing to do.
- coward8675309 6y ago
  I spent $600 on a PS2 from an eBay-based scalper in 2000. I can only imagine how much more organized and pervasive the practice is twenty years later.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Easy access to code to run your own bot doesn’t help. In 2000, the internet was pretty new, but now, YouTube exists and can teach anyone to set up their own bot for a chance to “get rich quick!”
    - coward8675309 6y ago
      I haven't looked, because I would get too depressed, but I'm sure YouTube contains videos teaching people how to get rich quick by creating videos that teach people how to get rich quick by…
      - doublerabbit 6y ago
        I'm already watching YouTube videos of 16 year olds teaching me things related to what I was teaching when I was 16. It's depressing.
- rob74 6y ago
  Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that, so the scalpers profit...
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    Your argument seems to be scalpers don’t have power because OEMs could just raise the price themselves and get all that scalp profit. That’s good in theory but in practice you have complex sales channel configurations and contractual agreements. If Best Buy is selling your GPU at $400 because that’s the agreed upon MSRP, they’re going to be pretty unhappy if they’re out of stock and suddenly you decide to increase MSRP to $800 after they’ve sold out because then they’ve made even less money. So your job now is to figure out what the scalp price will be in the future before there’s any demand. Additionally, please factor in your pissed off customers who paid you $800 for launch day delivery for the price to potentially drop to $400 a few months after. What’s the cost of that brand damage? Scalpers have numbers (if demand and supply are close, they have an artificial power to restrict it) and power (the OEMs have to tread a delicate line with many constituencies that scalpers don’t since you “blame” scalpers but that doesn’t hurt anyone’s actual reputation). For all we know scalpers are part of the business plan. NVidia gets record sales numbers and press articles about how the GPU is sold out. All the OEMs offer preferential access to buy the GPUs giving them better margins, getting rid of inventory, and no reputation risk beyond at worst some marginal grumbling that they’re not doing enough to stop scalpers. The only ones getting screwed are early adopters who are eager to pay higher prices. It’s the perfect way to segment the market by price sensitivity without paying for it or running afoul of any laws if it’s being done intentionally.
    - stale2002 6y ago
      So, I heard an interesting solution to the scalper price problem, where suppliers are unable to raise prices. What Nvidia could do is sell a special "doctors without border's edition" version of their graphics card, that is 500$ more expensive, and the extra money is donated. That way, the extra money goes to charity instead of the scalpers, and nobody can really complain about it, because what do you hate charity?
- raducu 6y ago
  Just my own tin-foil observation: the prices of components in much demand tens to remain much higher than the original anounced price for years. Scalpers cannot account for that. Surely Nvidia is actually chatging premium prices as well and blames it on scalpers and unexpected demand. Nvidia just tricks the world with the low announced price, bates and then switches, realtors do that all the time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zamadatix 6y ago
There's some relevant backstory to understand what was said - Nvidia's CEO kicked off the RTX 3000 launch (which was the first of the recent chain of products that have been hard to get) by saying "The 3080 and 3090 have a demand issue, not a supply issue" and as you just pointed out this doesn't make any sense but here we are having to point out there are reasons in the world Nvidia can't produce enough GPUs since that sounds too negative for them to say outright for some reason. Since companies have at least admitted there isn't going to be a lot of supply (some after reality actually hit them but at least they eventually said it) but still while dodging actually admitting it's simply because of the reasons in the article, hence the article. I think it's a valid point and certainly not conspiratorial or what's wrong with humanity even if it wasn't.
NoOneNew 6y ago
Yea, this also happens periodically, granted at lesser degrees. Incorrect projections, retooling, mundane management changes that HAVE to make their immediate mark on production and other crap. Given the ever so minor hiccups to the global supply chain we experienced throughout the year, on top of a plant catching ablaze... this isn't that surprising. This too shall pass.
pilsetnieks 6y ago
I think you're overly simplifying the issue. The interesting part here is about why there are these supply issues - are there technical limitations, lack of manufacturing capacity, manufacturing difficulties, supply issues for source materials, transportation problems or costs, etc.

colejohnson66 6y ago

You mentioned this briefly, but: I think the big problem is the stay-at-home orders combined with massive improvements in technology results in tons more people wanting to upgrade immediately than initially expected (based on previous releases). It wouldn’t make sense for Nvidia to produce less than the demand on purpose because that results in less money. If we take the view of companies want to maximize profit, it would make sense that they’d try to fulfill demand. Another big problem is scalpers and websites not doing enough to stop it. They create an artificial scarcity so they can make a quick buck. Sure, a PS5 isn’t “essential” like toilet paper is, but it’s still a dick thing to do.

coward8675309 6y ago
I spent $600 on a PS2 from an eBay-based scalper in 2000. I can only imagine how much more organized and pervasive the practice is twenty years later.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Easy access to code to run your own bot doesn’t help. In 2000, the internet was pretty new, but now, YouTube exists and can teach anyone to set up their own bot for a chance to “get rich quick!”
  - coward8675309 6y ago
    I haven't looked, because I would get too depressed, but I'm sure YouTube contains videos teaching people how to get rich quick by creating videos that teach people how to get rich quick by…
    - doublerabbit 6y ago
      I'm already watching YouTube videos of 16 year olds teaching me things related to what I was teaching when I was 16. It's depressing.
rob74 6y ago
Scalpers aren't powerful enough to create an artificial scarcity. If there were not really an increased demand for the products, noone would pay their inflated prices. When demand outstrips supply, the logical thing for manufacturers and (e-)retailers to do would be to increase prices themselves to balance out the situation, but for various reasons (one of which is possible negative PR) they are reluctant to do that, so the scalpers profit...
- vlovich123 6y ago
  Your argument seems to be scalpers don’t have power because OEMs could just raise the price themselves and get all that scalp profit. That’s good in theory but in practice you have complex sales channel configurations and contractual agreements. If Best Buy is selling your GPU at $400 because that’s the agreed upon MSRP, they’re going to be pretty unhappy if they’re out of stock and suddenly you decide to increase MSRP to $800 after they’ve sold out because then they’ve made even less money. So your job now is to figure out what the scalp price will be in the future before there’s any demand. Additionally, please factor in your pissed off customers who paid you $800 for launch day delivery for the price to potentially drop to $400 a few months after. What’s the cost of that brand damage? Scalpers have numbers (if demand and supply are close, they have an artificial power to restrict it) and power (the OEMs have to tread a delicate line with many constituencies that scalpers don’t since you “blame” scalpers but that doesn’t hurt anyone’s actual reputation). For all we know scalpers are part of the business plan. NVidia gets record sales numbers and press articles about how the GPU is sold out. All the OEMs offer preferential access to buy the GPUs giving them better margins, getting rid of inventory, and no reputation risk beyond at worst some marginal grumbling that they’re not doing enough to stop scalpers. The only ones getting screwed are early adopters who are eager to pay higher prices. It’s the perfect way to segment the market by price sensitivity without paying for it or running afoul of any laws if it’s being done intentionally.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    So, I heard an interesting solution to the scalper price problem, where suppliers are unable to raise prices. What Nvidia could do is sell a special "doctors without border's edition" version of their graphics card, that is 500$ more expensive, and the extra money is donated. That way, the extra money goes to charity instead of the scalpers, and nobody can really complain about it, because what do you hate charity?
raducu 6y ago
Just my own tin-foil observation: the prices of components in much demand tens to remain much higher than the original anounced price for years. Scalpers cannot account for that. Surely Nvidia is actually chatging premium prices as well and blames it on scalpers and unexpected demand. Nvidia just tricks the world with the low announced price, bates and then switches, realtors do that all the time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

zamadatix 6y ago

There's some relevant backstory to understand what was said - Nvidia's CEO kicked off the RTX 3000 launch (which was the first of the recent chain of products that have been hard to get) by saying "The 3080 and 3090 have a demand issue, not a supply issue" and as you just pointed out this doesn't make any sense but here we are having to point out there are reasons in the world Nvidia can't produce enough GPUs since that sounds too negative for them to say outright for some reason. Since companies have at least admitted there isn't going to be a lot of supply (some after reality actually hit them but at least they eventually said it) but still while dodging actually admitting it's simply because of the reasons in the article, hence the article. I think it's a valid point and certainly not conspiratorial or what's wrong with humanity even if it wasn't.

NoOneNew 6y ago

Yea, this also happens periodically, granted at lesser degrees. Incorrect projections, retooling, mundane management changes that HAVE to make their immediate mark on production and other crap. Given the ever so minor hiccups to the global supply chain we experienced throughout the year, on top of a plant catching ablaze... this isn't that surprising. This too shall pass.

pilsetnieks 6y ago

I think you're overly simplifying the issue. The interesting part here is about why there are these supply issues - are there technical limitations, lack of manufacturing capacity, manufacturing difficulties, supply issues for source materials, transportation problems or costs, etc.