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It's not about principles, it's about economics. This is a matter of price discrimination. Nvidia wants to be sure they have a chance to sell their gear to eve

It's not about principles, it's about economics. This is a matter of price discrimination. Nvidia wants to be sure they have a chance to sell their gear to every single person who has money to spend on graphics cards at a range of price points. Consumers have smaller wallets than professionals, but both have similar needs. So the company performs a "hack" that allows them to extract maximum revenues from each segment. Let's take this to an absurd extreme. Sennheiser did this by crippling their low-end headphones with a piece of foam to limit audio quality. Savvy audiophiles simply popped open the cans and removed the foam. No quibble with that, right? For me, companies have every right to practice price discrimination by fiddling with their hardware. And I think consumers have every right to mod that hardware. A few tinkerers are unlikely to break a meticulous price discrimination model like Nvidia's, and I think it's probably a net win for the company to have a chunk of their userbase who love them so much all they want to do is tinker in this way.

GhotiFish 14y ago
Yes. That's a wonderful rhetoric, but really what it's saying is that the only people who don't deserve being screwed are the people that make it a hobby to tinker. There's many other areas of life to specialize in, not just technology/engineering side of things. I think general fair play trumps an incentive to learn and hack.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  What makes price discrimination unfair? Nvidia needs to recover costs and earn a profit. They do so by segmenting the market. That they are able to do so in this way suggests that no one else is able to perform the R&D necessary to sell these tools at a lower cost. Who's getting screwed? The gamers who lose out on pro features many don't even need?
  - GhotiFish 14y ago
    or the pros getting massively overcharged because culture accepts the notion of sinking tens of thousands of dollars on the equipment of ones profession. The answer is both.
    - danilocampos 14y ago
      You seem really excited about being angry about this, and I'd hate to deprive of your rage-joy. So, sure.
      - GhotiFish 14y ago
        I appreciate hacker news preventing anyone under 500 from downvoting comments. It makes sense really. People use downvotes as an analog for disagreement, but those kinds of actions obfuscate proper discussion. Really what they should be used for is dissuading bad thinking, trolling, or poor rhetoric. What do you think?
        danilocampos 14y ago
        I think whatever you're getting at has sailed right over my head. But I'm glad you're having fun! That's really what it's all about.
- seanp2k2 14y ago
  I can also see this in the obligatory car example: your car has the same engine as a nicer model but is just de-tuned with software. Is buying a Mercedes C63 AMG and flashing the ECU to unlock more horsepower effectively "stealing" the SL63 that has the full horsepower unlocked? Of course not, because you still have a C63 and not the SL. In the case of the GPU, you not only get no "professional level" support; you void your warranty (this second part probably also applies to the car). Is a professional going to risk it to save a few bucks? I'd bet not.
- marcoperaza 14y ago
  It's not "being screwed". If they didn't do this, they would have to either physically make different cards which would increase the price of both (or lower margins and reinvestment in r&d) OR keep the same hardware and sell it at only one price point somewhere in the middle (which would be more expensive for the consumer, who typically wants the cheaper gaming card). This is a win-win for pretty much the entire market.
- jsmeaton 14y ago
  We see this behaviour in lots of industries. Car manufacturers will nerf the lower end vehicles so that there is more 'value' in purchasing a higher end car for enthusiasts. And to hit a little more close to home - think of all the web companies doing exactly the same thing. There are usually 3 or 4 price points, each segment operating within the same code, but features enabled for the higher price points. I see the same thing happening here. The 'performance' of the cards are the same after this hack, but the driver software 'lights up' exposing extra features. You could say the price differences pay for the driver features.
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    In the case of software as a service, different pricing tiers are at least semi-justifiable because you can argue that additional featuresets require more system resources to be added to the hardware infrastructure undergirding the site. If you want the more demanding features, you must compensate the provider for the extra infrastructure hit they'll be taking. Therefore, it doesn't feel as lame as intentionally performing a simple downgrade with the hope that you'll be able to trick others into paying more money for something that's already there if you know how to remove the foam/hack the resistor/whatever.
    - jsmeaton 14y ago
      As far as more demanding resources go, that's not always the case but in a lot of them it would be. Think then about the various versions of Visual Studio or even Windows (Pro/Home) etc. The argument is still the same. And with this nvidia case, the hardware hack only lights up new features in the drivers. It's exactly the same principle, and one others have shown is acceptable market practice.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        Visual Studio and Windows aren't software as a service, and I suppose the argument in traditional client apps is that "the advanced features cost a lot more money to develop, so we need to recoup that cost". Neither case is as egregious as starting everything at a high-level baseline and then intentionally decreasing/damaging some parts to make them into "lower-end" models. Software is usually developed the opposite way -- you start at the baseline, get something together, and then say, "Oh, what about feature X? That'll take a while to develop..." and some guy says "Well, we can make it a premium feature". It just doesn't have the same feel as nvidia's hardware hack.
cma 14y ago
Sennheiser may have very well manufactured that whole incident in order to sell more of their overpriced-at-any-level headphones. Marketing people love to make people think they are getting a steal.

GhotiFish 14y ago

Yes. That's a wonderful rhetoric, but really what it's saying is that the only people who don't deserve being screwed are the people that make it a hobby to tinker. There's many other areas of life to specialize in, not just technology/engineering side of things. I think general fair play trumps an incentive to learn and hack.

danilocampos 14y ago
What makes price discrimination unfair? Nvidia needs to recover costs and earn a profit. They do so by segmenting the market. That they are able to do so in this way suggests that no one else is able to perform the R&D necessary to sell these tools at a lower cost. Who's getting screwed? The gamers who lose out on pro features many don't even need?
- GhotiFish 14y ago
  or the pros getting massively overcharged because culture accepts the notion of sinking tens of thousands of dollars on the equipment of ones profession. The answer is both.
  - danilocampos 14y ago
    You seem really excited about being angry about this, and I'd hate to deprive of your rage-joy. So, sure.
    - GhotiFish 14y ago
      I appreciate hacker news preventing anyone under 500 from downvoting comments. It makes sense really. People use downvotes as an analog for disagreement, but those kinds of actions obfuscate proper discussion. Really what they should be used for is dissuading bad thinking, trolling, or poor rhetoric. What do you think?
      - danilocampos 14y ago
        I think whatever you're getting at has sailed right over my head. But I'm glad you're having fun! That's really what it's all about.
seanp2k2 14y ago
I can also see this in the obligatory car example: your car has the same engine as a nicer model but is just de-tuned with software. Is buying a Mercedes C63 AMG and flashing the ECU to unlock more horsepower effectively "stealing" the SL63 that has the full horsepower unlocked? Of course not, because you still have a C63 and not the SL. In the case of the GPU, you not only get no "professional level" support; you void your warranty (this second part probably also applies to the car). Is a professional going to risk it to save a few bucks? I'd bet not.
marcoperaza 14y ago
It's not "being screwed". If they didn't do this, they would have to either physically make different cards which would increase the price of both (or lower margins and reinvestment in r&d) OR keep the same hardware and sell it at only one price point somewhere in the middle (which would be more expensive for the consumer, who typically wants the cheaper gaming card). This is a win-win for pretty much the entire market.
jsmeaton 14y ago
We see this behaviour in lots of industries. Car manufacturers will nerf the lower end vehicles so that there is more 'value' in purchasing a higher end car for enthusiasts. And to hit a little more close to home - think of all the web companies doing exactly the same thing. There are usually 3 or 4 price points, each segment operating within the same code, but features enabled for the higher price points. I see the same thing happening here. The 'performance' of the cards are the same after this hack, but the driver software 'lights up' exposing extra features. You could say the price differences pay for the driver features.
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  In the case of software as a service, different pricing tiers are at least semi-justifiable because you can argue that additional featuresets require more system resources to be added to the hardware infrastructure undergirding the site. If you want the more demanding features, you must compensate the provider for the extra infrastructure hit they'll be taking. Therefore, it doesn't feel as lame as intentionally performing a simple downgrade with the hope that you'll be able to trick others into paying more money for something that's already there if you know how to remove the foam/hack the resistor/whatever.
  - jsmeaton 14y ago
    As far as more demanding resources go, that's not always the case but in a lot of them it would be. Think then about the various versions of Visual Studio or even Windows (Pro/Home) etc. The argument is still the same. And with this nvidia case, the hardware hack only lights up new features in the drivers. It's exactly the same principle, and one others have shown is acceptable market practice.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      Visual Studio and Windows aren't software as a service, and I suppose the argument in traditional client apps is that "the advanced features cost a lot more money to develop, so we need to recoup that cost". Neither case is as egregious as starting everything at a high-level baseline and then intentionally decreasing/damaging some parts to make them into "lower-end" models. Software is usually developed the opposite way -- you start at the baseline, get something together, and then say, "Oh, what about feature X? That'll take a while to develop..." and some guy says "Well, we can make it a premium feature". It just doesn't have the same feel as nvidia's hardware hack.

cma 14y ago

Sennheiser may have very well manufactured that whole incident in order to sell more of their overpriced-at-any-level headphones. Marketing people love to make people think they are getting a steal.