alt Hacker NewsThis is not just gaming communities and it is not just kids. The number of adults who don't understand basic supply and demand is astonishing.
Every discussion about Ticketmaster and/or scalpers is full of people who think if it wasn't for scalpers and ticketmaster, we could all go to every concert we want to for a reasonable price.
It is the same thing with the tech community and the price of hard drives, RAM, and GPUs right now. I have seen so many comments by people saying they "aren't going to support the price gouging" and seem to think manufacturers are just taking advantage of the hype to increase their prices.
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The funniest to me was people being confused why cutting of the strait of Hormuz would increase gas prices in the US when the US produces enough to supply its own demand.
But since it’s a global market the missing supply raises prices everywhere…
Does Ticketmaster not amplify prices and use perceived scarcity to drive up prices? They can due that because Live Nation is a monopoly in all but name.
The societal advantage of raising prices with demand is that it will lead to more supply generally, but in some cases supply is just simply limited and cannot be expanded enough sensibly. This leads just to people earning money without any additional economic benefit and often the poor suffering because of it (like with oil currently).
Of course DRAM manufacturers are taking advantage of the current situation, they're companies and making money is what companies are for. The problem is that DRAM manufacturing works in boom-bust cycles, building a new factory is capital intensive and slow, so additional supply will come too few and too late to press prices down to a sensible rate above manufacturing costs.