Reminder: there are no video outputs on these chatbot data center processors driving up the prices of graphics cards.

So they can’t even sell as used GPUs to crash the consumer GPU price market when the AI bubble pops.

This is a reminder that businesses aren’t “money focused calculation machines that optimize for the maximum possible profit.” They don’t worry about every little dollar, they just print money and use it to control you.

Raising prices for you is the goal, not a byproduct of some other smarter plan.

Some people don’t need the rest of this post, and it’s very long, so I’ll put it in a comment.

  • More detailed explanation of the dynamics behind this:

    Companies like OpenAI would be smart to pay a few extra cents per unit for video outputs to help prevent depreciation if they need to liquidate assets later. But it probably costs way more than a few extra cents per unit, because the chipmakers have a monopoly. The chipmakers know nobody else has been allowed to build the same level of chip fabrication tech they have, so all customers will have to pay the prices they set.

    Therefore, if openAI wanted to add video outputs to their cards, Nvidia has no financial reason to allow prices lower than the revenue that would be lost by consumers not needing to pay for the same chips to be made again with video outputs later.

    But that’s not some genius calculation Nvidia is making to outsmart everyone. You don’t have to be smart or superhumanly profit-maximizing to figure out that you’re being given the authority to set prices when it is given to you. Furthermore, a random group of mid-IQ psychopaths would never be given authority to set these prices in a market of real businesses and genius entrepreneurs competing to maximize profit.

    You’re supposed to believe:

    1. The authorities printed this money because they wanted more money.
    2. They forgot the goal was to have more money for themselves, and they accidentally distributed the money through things like wages and bank loans while running out of ink.
    3. For the millionth time, they remembered they want as much money as possible and they need all that money back because ink will never be sold on the open market again (being a super genius, laser focused on profit, doesn’t come with awareness ink is still available).
    4. They don’t want to just force you to give all the money back at gunpoint, that would risk destabilizing their authority, so they have to basically outsmart you into giving the money back, just like all the other times this has happened.
    5. Every time this happened in the past, they split up into corporate teams to make it a game seeing who could come up with the smartest plans to get money from you, and that’s become a strong standing tradition where these corporate teams stay in place eager to play more money game.
    6. They make today’s money the “ball” for yet another session of the money game.
    7. The authorities that went in Team Nvidia for this round are winning this round because they figured out a genius strategy to scoop up a bunch of money with this AI bubble, and then years later, also finish getting the last bits of money from people buying GPUs again because the AI bubble cards don’t have video outputs.
    8. Remember, they are not doing this on purpose, these are just the kind of mistakes you get out of geniuses who are obsessed with getting as much money as possible. They don’t mean to forget the goal of printing the money and accidentally distribute it through wages and bank loans and stuff, but even the smartest most money-obsessed person just forgets stuff like that over and over. They don’t do this for the love of the game, they do it because they’re very smart and they want more money, but just not smart enough or desperate enough for more money to avoid forgetting why they printed it and accidentally distributing it yet again, triggering yet another round of this money game that they insist is a side effect of the real goal of more money. They’re also not smart enough to realize affordable ink sources will probably be found someday to print more money again, just like all the other times this has happened. If they find out affordable ink is indeed available again, they will probably stop all this and just go back to printing money - or at least stop letting it go for stuff like wages or bank loans, so they don’t have to do all this again.

    What actually happened:

    1. The authorities printed more money because they wanted stuff people would give them for it.
    2. People will give them stuff for the money mainly because they want the stuff they can get with it too, but they can’t just print it like the authorities can, so they get the money by giving the authorities stuff so they can use the money from the authorities to get other stuff.
    3. Therefore, if the authorities want to keep offering money in return for stuff, they should also offer stuff in return for money - and they can make it profitable for themselves by offering as little money as possible in return for stuff, and as little stuff as possible in return for money.
    4. They also have authority over the production of computer equipment.
    5. They wanted a bunch of computer equipment for themselves, but not for you, so they made it special for themselves and not for you.
    6. This way, they will still be able to offer as little as possible for the most money possible if you’re buying a GPU later.
    7. They didn’t distribute the money accidentally after forgetting the goal was to have as much money as possible - they printed the money to offer it for other stuff they wanted. They didn’t and still don’t have some strange desire for more of the money they can freely print, and if they did, it would be weird that they’re desperate to get it from people they gave it to instead of just printing more, since they’re well aware ink is available and affordable to just print more. And indeed, they will print more to offer for more stuff, at whatever pace seems to maximize the stuff they get in return.
    8. They came up with a story about how they’re all money-focused geniuses, and the mistakes involved are just the kind of mistakes money-focused geniuses make, because that story helps sell the idea that money is desirable and you’d be smart to give people stuff for printing it.