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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34493 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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You can't price graphics cards dynamically because OEMs and third party manufacturers would be completely screwed. Nobody would be able to produce cards except the company that designed them.

OEMs and third party manufacturers would be completely screwed.

Interestingly, that's what nVidia's been doing for the last few years. EVGA is no longer working with them mainly for that reason, and every other company still making GPUs with them doesn't make most of their money on those products to begin with.

You mean like Alienware not being able to sell prebuilt gaming PCs if Nvidia goes dynamic? Or AIB partners like Asus/MSI/EVGA?

For one, this can be sidestepped if the prerelease period where cards are dynamically priced are targeted toward only the DIY crowd. But even during general release, I don't see why OEMs and AIBs can't dynamically price too, at least online. It's probably trivial to have Nvidia set up an API that publishes its prices in real time so OEMs can do a simple cost-plus. Retail is more difficult, but dynamic pricing is being deployed in physical locations too with digital price tags that can change many times a day.

I'd also argue the entire ecosystem will benefit from disruption. Some players will suffer if they cannot adapt quickly, but that should leave more profit for those that can innovate away the inefficiencies around secondary markets. A physical store that resists change might not be all that different from car dealers that lobby against allowing consumers to buy directly from manufacturers.

It's not trivial. You can't change the price of retail goods that quickly from the manufacturer side. That's just not how it works.

Plenty have been impossible or "not how it works", until they're forced to adapt by innovation. I'm sure travel agents everywhere argued the same at the advent of the Expedias of the world. Same for cab companies when Ubers came out--no way drivers and riders would accept unpredictable prices! You can only operate on a fixed rate from downtown to the airport or a flat fee plus fixed price per mile and minute!

No business is going to buy a fleet of new trucks sold at an uncertain price that fluctuates monthly. No dealership is going to agree to sell vehicles without knowing exactly what the margin will be ahead of time.

I don't mean to be flippant toward you, but my response would be... so?

Tesla and its sincere imitators push hard to skip dealers, and as far as I can tell, consumers generally like that. Let dealerships fail, particularly those in states protected by law from competition.

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