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Not sure how this is relevant. Company should look how to increase the supply instead of artificially crippling the product to squeeze more money.

bryanlarsen 6y ago
By crippling the product for miners, they're increasing the supply for gamers.
- varispeed 6y ago
  What if you are a gamer and you want to mine when you don't play?
  - stale2002 6y ago
    This isn't a huge market. So that sounds like an acceptable loss to me. All decisions have tradeoffs, and that is a small one.
  - lupire 6y ago
    Then you'll be happy with a half hash rate card.
asutekku 6y ago
If it is not physically possible, this decision makes a lot of sense. Due to the global semiconductor shortage it simply is not possible to build more on the scale customers would like to.
- varispeed 6y ago
  The instrument to regulate that is called the price. You increase the price until there is a steady supply. That would help funding new fabs and in the long run increase the supply so that it could be available for a broader range of consumers. The way they do it is not sustainable. They will not generate enough money to pay for new manufacturing plants this way.
  - glennpratt 6y ago
    And crypto demand can evaporate tomorrow, as it has in the past and leave those plants unprofitable.
  - kristjansson 6y ago
    > ‘long run’ That’s on the order of years for this problem. I would imagine that Nvidia doesn’t think it could survive the reputational costs of charging market clearing prices for their cards for years - effectively proscribing their core gamer market for the entire period. Sure, that’s what’s happening now, but it’s the fault of scalpers not a business decision by Nvidia. The scalpers get the ire of the core market, and Nvidia gets to look like it’s doing its best (while guaranteeing all the inventory it can make will sell) It’s the same reason your favorite band charges a low face for tickets that doesn’t reflect demand - they don’t want to be the bad guy excluding poor people from the experience, they just let the scalpers do that.
    - varispeed 6y ago
      So they essentially got themselves in a pickle. It looks like they have not invested money in infrastructure and instead lowered prices to attract as many people as possible thinking what they currently have will be "enough". They have not predicted that the demand will be so high that it will exceed their current abilities and they have no money to increase the production and they are unable to raise the money without destroying the market they built. That they want to give the experience to the "poor" people it is just a poor excuse of poor management.
      - kristjansson 6y ago
        > unable to raise the money I think Nvidia could borrow or raise basically any amount of money if they had capital-intensive projects to invest in that would solve current or future supply constraints. Retained earnings are not the only way a company can invest in itself. The problem isn't capital, its fundamental inelasticity of supply for semiconductors. Fabs (or capacity in fabs) can't be spun up or down quickly, nevermind cheaply.
dageshi 6y ago
However many they produce, miners will buy all of them. Miners will outbid gamers on the same cards. What is your solution?

bryanlarsen 6y ago

By crippling the product for miners, they're increasing the supply for gamers.

varispeed 6y ago
What if you are a gamer and you want to mine when you don't play?
- stale2002 6y ago
  This isn't a huge market. So that sounds like an acceptable loss to me. All decisions have tradeoffs, and that is a small one.
- lupire 6y ago
  Then you'll be happy with a half hash rate card.

asutekku 6y ago

If it is not physically possible, this decision makes a lot of sense. Due to the global semiconductor shortage it simply is not possible to build more on the scale customers would like to.

varispeed 6y ago
The instrument to regulate that is called the price. You increase the price until there is a steady supply. That would help funding new fabs and in the long run increase the supply so that it could be available for a broader range of consumers. The way they do it is not sustainable. They will not generate enough money to pay for new manufacturing plants this way.
- glennpratt 6y ago
  And crypto demand can evaporate tomorrow, as it has in the past and leave those plants unprofitable.
- kristjansson 6y ago
  > ‘long run’ That’s on the order of years for this problem. I would imagine that Nvidia doesn’t think it could survive the reputational costs of charging market clearing prices for their cards for years - effectively proscribing their core gamer market for the entire period. Sure, that’s what’s happening now, but it’s the fault of scalpers not a business decision by Nvidia. The scalpers get the ire of the core market, and Nvidia gets to look like it’s doing its best (while guaranteeing all the inventory it can make will sell) It’s the same reason your favorite band charges a low face for tickets that doesn’t reflect demand - they don’t want to be the bad guy excluding poor people from the experience, they just let the scalpers do that.
  - varispeed 6y ago
    So they essentially got themselves in a pickle. It looks like they have not invested money in infrastructure and instead lowered prices to attract as many people as possible thinking what they currently have will be "enough". They have not predicted that the demand will be so high that it will exceed their current abilities and they have no money to increase the production and they are unable to raise the money without destroying the market they built. That they want to give the experience to the "poor" people it is just a poor excuse of poor management.
    - kristjansson 6y ago
      > unable to raise the money I think Nvidia could borrow or raise basically any amount of money if they had capital-intensive projects to invest in that would solve current or future supply constraints. Retained earnings are not the only way a company can invest in itself. The problem isn't capital, its fundamental inelasticity of supply for semiconductors. Fabs (or capacity in fabs) can't be spun up or down quickly, nevermind cheaply.

dageshi 6y ago

However many they produce, miners will buy all of them. Miners will outbid gamers on the same cards. What is your solution?