Why has capitalism failed in the video card industry?

[Gagabiji]

Didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if someone already said this. 20 fps more? Comparing, shall we say, a 9800 Pro to a 6800 Ultra, the 6800 Ultra runs about 2X faster then the 9800 Pro.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Pandaren
I've never spent more than $70 on a video card. My last purchase was a Radeon 9100 for $48 - I just need something "good enough." I beat Doom 3 on my Radeon 9100 too 😀

I'm with you. My last upgrade was to a R9200 64MB, for $40. (Would have been $20, had I sent in the rebate. Lazy me.) I wanted something that was just "good enough" for UT2K4. Unfortunately, I may have undershot the mark by a tiny margin, as the new onslaugh levels are a bit too heavy for it at times. I prefer to keep 30-35+ fps at all times for smoothness. Still worlds better than the GF2 MX, TNT1, and S3 ViRGE that were in the PC prior, in that order, and half as much as the next-highest reasonable contender. I find that I make more use of the dual-head feature than I do the 3D capability anyways.

 

[Genx87]

When consumers become willing to pay inflated prices, capitalism fails. When consumers make a stand, everyone wins, and capitalism succeeds.

Who told you that? Capitalism is about making money, not giving away things. When the consumers are willing to pay a high price then they will sell it at that price. That is how capitalism works.

I suppose I am idealistic in thinking that consumers as a whole would ever work to stamp out the initial price gouging.

Sounds to me like you want regulation of pricing. That is not capitalism at all. What you want is the best parts for cheap. You will never get the best for cheap in a capitalistic system.

 

[gsellis]

Capitalism failed? Yeah, right.

It has been well covered, but capitalism only enables the system of supply and demand to allow you to even obtain the good. Capitalism allows for a system that will reward innovation (socialism, fascism and communism tend to not reward innovation - and can actually punish such). Therefore, captialism was the mechanism that help ensure a 6800GT would be on the market along with the other cards. Consumer demand, vendor supply, and margin cost/marginal revenue set the price. Guys who will pay $600 for one are consuming the supply, and as long as that demand is there, there will not be a supply at the price you wish it was.

If it costs more to make it than the price you want to pay, you will always be unhappy. But then some fool will decide that everyone should have them, therefore will fix the price at your price. This is a problem that socialism/communism brings to the market. Because the vendor cannot cover costs, they will stop manufacturing them. But then the government will decide to use the force of the gun to make them produce them. The mfgr cannot produce them because they cannot buy the raw materials. So, the government uses its force of the gun again to take money from everyone (taxes) to buy the raw materials to make them. It gets even uglier from there... The mfgr cannot hire workers because they have no money to workers either. So, the government forces people to work for the mfgr at wages the government sets. Now you have 'indentured' workers too.

So, instead of wondering why you need it so bad when you clearly do not, you have now enslaved a nation so you get better than 20fps. You did not need that game. You did not need to run at that resolution. But now you have created a communist government that oppresses its people. Evil scum. 😀

 

[jim1976]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Supply versus demand.

Is there ANY hope that we could take back our rights as consumers and start paying non-inflated prices for hardware again?

Stop buying mid range products then, that is where the inflated prices are. As of now between yield considerations and the type of RAM they are shipping on high end parts we are lucky the highest end parts are *only* $500(as odd as that may sound). $200 for the x700 and 6600GT is where nV and ATi are making the real money(check their financial breakout). With how quickly the highest end parts are selling out we are rather fortunate that the retailers have been so poor with their capitalistic skills.

I for one am extremely pleased people are willing to shell out massive amounts of cash for vid cards- I just wish they were on the sound end of the spectrum too so we could see the kind of enormous leaps on that front that we do on the vid card side(get out of the antiquated pregenerated sounds with some reverb effects to real dynamic sound generation). If the money moved out of vid cards so to would the R&D to keep up the extremely rapid level of development.

Capitalism at its core is survival of the fittest and individualistic, certainly not the collectivist/Utopian/Marxist system that you seem to want it to be.

Best answer so far. :thumbsup:
Pretty much covers the whole point. Luv the last part, a point of "lifetime" debate among economists and "wannabe" economists. Join the 21st century ppl.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: zenwhen
The price of the hardware in question isn't what it is because the hardware cost forces the pricepoint. The 9800 Pro was 400 dollars when it came out. It is 200 dollars now and still in production. The hardware didn't magically become cheaper.

Um.. yeah the HW does get cheapier to produce. Why do you think ATI and nVidia do chip respins every 6 months? The 9800 Pros used to be the R350 cores... now they are the R360 cores. They shrink the dies, they get better yields and so the price of the chip itself comes down. Then the price of the RAM comes down.. the boards manufacturers get more experienced and their process matures and they have less waste Again this means lower costs. Everything gets cheapier to make in this industry as time goes on.

 

[jasonja]

duh.. repost