3 ms·

>The issue is the supply will always be low if the MSRP is too low The issue is can people make the supply low and drive the cards price up where such activity

>The issue is the supply will always be low if the MSRP is too low The issue is can people make the supply low and drive the cards price up where such activity is profitable, or not. You can declare the MSRP 'too low' but if there are plenty of cards available at MSRP no one will pay the inflated price. The supply was very low, which allowed people to drive the price up for opportunities to engage in some profitable arbitrage with those few who were interested in overpaying for the cards. After a short time of ubiquitous scalping, the manufacturers themselves raised the price to eat the amount being arbitrated because why wouldn't they if there were still people buying at that price? At that point why would they make more cards if they can make money selling fewer cards with less cost? The 'market finds the price' approach doesn't work if everyone involved including the manufacturers are all looking to drive the price up for their own profit, which is what happened. Lots of people made money as middlemen for running bots etc to snap up whatever supply of cards there were, without adding any value or improving anything but their own finances. Now translate that to everything else you buy and you can see that if the same could be done to baby formula, or cars, or houses, or eggs, and you can clearly see it would be a negative on society in general. You just need someone with a big enough fund - like say blackrock buying up homes, etc.

dontbenebby 4y ago
>The 'market finds the price' approach doesn't work if everyone involved including the manufacturers are all looking to drive the price up for their own profit, which is what happened. Agreed. Folks want to focus on one variable (the MSRP) -- with the idea "the market" will adjust that variable, but "the market" is not a healthy one -- if people are buying a bunch of GPUs to create an electronic currency that is less private than cash, then using it for a host of illegal activity you can do... with cash... and in the process distorting the market for scientific equipment (as the one parent hinted at with their comment about "just" doing machine learning) then only changing one variable (the MSRP) isn't the appropriate solution. But you get people who would scoff at the idea of an invisible man in the sky having near religious meltdowns if you tell them there's also no invisible hand in the market :-)

dontbenebby 4y ago

>The 'market finds the price' approach doesn't work if everyone involved including the manufacturers are all looking to drive the price up for their own profit, which is what happened. Agreed. Folks want to focus on one variable (the MSRP) -- with the idea "the market" will adjust that variable, but "the market" is not a healthy one -- if people are buying a bunch of GPUs to create an electronic currency that is less private than cash, then using it for a host of illegal activity you can do... with cash... and in the process distorting the market for scientific equipment (as the one parent hinted at with their comment about "just" doing machine learning) then only changing one variable (the MSRP) isn't the appropriate solution. But you get people who would scoff at the idea of an invisible man in the sky having near religious meltdowns if you tell them there's also no invisible hand in the market :-)