In my country job loss is less than during regular times, because of all the government subsidies and spending, that result in fewer businesses going bankrupt than ever.
People saved a lot of money and time by not doing all kinds of outdoor activities, like eating out, going to festivals, etc. They can spend all that money and time on other things, like gaming.
There is a reason why GPU prices traditionally go down in the summer, when people do a lot more of those outdoor activities. Covid was basically the opposite of that, but far more potent.
I was being generous about it; I wasn't really impacted in a financial way. But the sum total of the economy isn't me, nor is it people
like me. If large portions of the population lost money, then who keeps paying $2500 for 2080 founder's edition cards off e-bay?
AMD at best didn't make much off of Polaris and Vega only got released because of a mining uptick. Those days are over.
It's probably a vain hope anymore, but I would hope for a repeat of the launch pricing of the 30 series. It seemed like a reasonable backpedal from the nonsense prices of the 20 series.
I will say it as often as I can...I got his card in 2019 (Holiday time frame) for $140. That's also when I got my 5700xt and a cheap 570. rx580 8bg = $140, rx570 4gb = $100, the most expensive AiB 5700xt + "free" router + two "free" games = $400. I don't think holiday 2019 was special. You could often buy cards well below MSRP if you just simply waited a few months after release hype died down.
I want that world back.
Companies send out a tweet about supply chain issues and then instantly raise prices through the roof. There are always legitimate examples, but mostly it's a load of crap and most people use it as an opportunity to simply jack up prices. Many of these "supply chain" complainers also boast of record profits at the same time. If Nvidia doesn't LOWER prices back to a sane level this gen then I'm not buying anything. Easy choice for me. An 80 class should be $700 max, 70 class $400 max, and 60 class $300 max. If that's too low and absolutely STUPID of me to suggest, then for me, I have decided that these products no longer make sense economically and shouldn't exist anymore. They cost too much for the nature of what they are. But people keep buying $2200 gaming GPUs, so there's always that.
If Nvidia refused to accept credit cards for the first week during the 4000 series launch, they'd sell less than 10% of whatever they are currently predicting. If these young, impulsive kids had to hand over $1500 in cash for an RTX 4080, less than 1 in 10 would still buy one, and that's being generous.
I'm so tired of supply chain this, supply chain that. It isn't just video cards. It's seemingly
everything. It cost a fortune repairing my deck because I guess covid killed off everything and everyone having to do with producing lumber. I hope nobody here needs a car, because you apparently can't find those either.
I'm tired of the excuses...it's greed at this point. Record profits, but you can't pay to get your crap to stores on time? Yeah, right.