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Surely we can all see the difference between a whole bunch of websites being paid for (lots of ethereal bits) and lots of actual computing hardware? Even if AI

Surely we can all see the difference between a whole bunch of websites being paid for (lots of ethereal bits) and lots of actual computing hardware? Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms. Computing power might get cheap for a while, but I'd be pretty shocked if this resulted in another pets.com Definitely interested to see where my thinking is off here, if anyone can help. This just doesn't seem much like a bubble to me.

grues-dinner 1y ago
> Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms Are there tons of uses for 2023 crypto farm hardware? A trillion dollars of GPUs in various stages of obsolescence and/or shagged-outness in data centres might be useful to the right people but it's a depreciating asset.
- kulahan 1y ago
  Everything in tech is a depreciating asset. If you're talking about GPUs used for mining crypto, yeah - most people run them well below max load, keep temps stable, and pay close attention to their crypto farm. Buying a used crypto farm GPU is great. If you're talking about purpose-built ASICs, probably still yes? It's not like it's performing some incredibly unique action when farming for crypto. The secondhand electronics market is fairly strong.
  - bloudermilk 1y ago
    Any good guides for buying on this secondhand market? I'd love to pick up some older decommissioned hardware but it's hard to find and harder to trust
    - kulahan 1y ago
      I'm not in the market myself; a number of friends buy them on eBay, but I don't know how to differentiate between good and bunk. I would assume that if they're selling 50 of them, though, that it's a good guess. Still, I think it's always something of a gamble. Maybe look for reputable dealers on there.
SmirkingRevenge 1y ago
It's like building a condo skyscraper just as the market crash of 2008 hits. The property will still be worth something but nowhere near the expected value pre-crash. For those still liquid when the dust settles, they'll be able to get great bargains on compute or even whole data centers. Maybe the land will be dotted with half-finished data centers that sit for years, like unfinished condo high-rises post 2008 crash

grues-dinner 1y ago

> Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms Are there tons of uses for 2023 crypto farm hardware? A trillion dollars of GPUs in various stages of obsolescence and/or shagged-outness in data centres might be useful to the right people but it's a depreciating asset.

kulahan 1y ago
Everything in tech is a depreciating asset. If you're talking about GPUs used for mining crypto, yeah - most people run them well below max load, keep temps stable, and pay close attention to their crypto farm. Buying a used crypto farm GPU is great. If you're talking about purpose-built ASICs, probably still yes? It's not like it's performing some incredibly unique action when farming for crypto. The secondhand electronics market is fairly strong.
- bloudermilk 1y ago
  Any good guides for buying on this secondhand market? I'd love to pick up some older decommissioned hardware but it's hard to find and harder to trust
  - kulahan 1y ago
    I'm not in the market myself; a number of friends buy them on eBay, but I don't know how to differentiate between good and bunk. I would assume that if they're selling 50 of them, though, that it's a good guess. Still, I think it's always something of a gamble. Maybe look for reputable dealers on there.

SmirkingRevenge 1y ago

It's like building a condo skyscraper just as the market crash of 2008 hits. The property will still be worth something but nowhere near the expected value pre-crash. For those still liquid when the dust settles, they'll be able to get great bargains on compute or even whole data centers. Maybe the land will be dotted with half-finished data centers that sit for years, like unfinished condo high-rises post 2008 crash