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> as usual, efficient price discovery tends to be viewed as evil by consumers This is the whole story. You can tell that game consoles, baby formula, and GPUs

> as usual, efficient price discovery tends to be viewed as evil by consumers This is the whole story. You can tell that game consoles, baby formula, and GPUs are under-priced, because it is worth spending hundreds of dollars and hours/weeks of dev time /on top of/ the too low price, just to get your hands on them for resale. I think people get confused, because the effect of a spike in demand or a decrease in supply can look the same, from a pricing standpoint, as collusion amongst multiple retailers - but we're not talking about gas stations across the street from each other agreeing not to sell below X price, this is a massively distributed phenomenon, which again goes to show that it is a genuine reflection of the mis-pricing of goods in the current market. The real tragedy when it comes to shortages of goods with inelastic demand, like baby formula, is that the various price gouging laws that prevent traditional retailers from correctly pricing items in the face of shortages, do nothing to actually control the price - in fact, they introduce a lot of inefficiency, and opportunity for counterfeits etc. I would much rather pay triple/quadruple at Target or Walmart than pay 0 because I'm looking at an empty shelf, or pay quintuple to some rando on eBay who may or may not actually be selling a genuine product.

cbozeman 4y ago
Not only is this not the whole story, it's a fucking awful interpretation of the actual story. Turn the clock back 23 years to 1999 and the GPU market was exploding, with tons of vendors, tons of chips, tons of competition, and excellent competing prices. What's changed since then? The same shit that Michael Crichton spent a 10 minute video on YouTube talking about in 1999... the consolidation of companies in all markets by ever-growing behemoths who swallow up all competition. There are what... three major chip foundries left, one of them is barely considered a "major" chip foundry (Global Foundries). The other two, Intel and TSMC, are so busy and booked up that they're running 24/7 nonstop to fill demand. This could never happen... would never happen... if we had a dozen different foundries all of similar technological prowess and size, and 1999 GPU markets are a clear indicator of that. Literally dozens of brands, using half a dozen or so different chips from companies like PowerVR, NVIDIA, ATI, 3Dfx, etc. GPUs aren't underpriced, our entire economic engine has become fouled by a lack of serious competition. Don't believe that? Go read an entire list of Disney's holdings. It's damn near unbelievable that our cowardly politicians haven't trust-busted the megacorps that are around today. It's so egregious that America's founders would probably drag their peers out into the street and shoot them themselves if they could see how corrupt the system's become.

cbozeman 4y ago

Not only is this not the whole story, it's a fucking awful interpretation of the actual story. Turn the clock back 23 years to 1999 and the GPU market was exploding, with tons of vendors, tons of chips, tons of competition, and excellent competing prices. What's changed since then? The same shit that Michael Crichton spent a 10 minute video on YouTube talking about in 1999... the consolidation of companies in all markets by ever-growing behemoths who swallow up all competition. There are what... three major chip foundries left, one of them is barely considered a "major" chip foundry (Global Foundries). The other two, Intel and TSMC, are so busy and booked up that they're running 24/7 nonstop to fill demand. This could never happen... would never happen... if we had a dozen different foundries all of similar technological prowess and size, and 1999 GPU markets are a clear indicator of that. Literally dozens of brands, using half a dozen or so different chips from companies like PowerVR, NVIDIA, ATI, 3Dfx, etc. GPUs aren't underpriced, our entire economic engine has become fouled by a lack of serious competition. Don't believe that? Go read an entire list of Disney's holdings. It's damn near unbelievable that our cowardly politicians haven't trust-busted the megacorps that are around today. It's so egregious that America's founders would probably drag their peers out into the street and shoot them themselves if they could see how corrupt the system's become.