Quote from: 123 on December 31, 2021, 21:53:59
I can understand professionals paying ridiculous prices for high-end GPUs - for them, there is no alternative. Gamers, on the other hand, just forgotten what it is to be a customer, and became mindless consumers over the years.
It's a question of impulse control. So many people these days can't control themselves. They demand gratification, now! For a (competent) professional, it's just an economic calculation. Is the increased productivity going to offset the cost? It's no secret that the ability to postpone gratification is a big predictor of success in life. You might feel like you're gaining on a moment by moment basis but in the end, you'll end up worse off. It's about striking balance between enjoying life and building it.
The risk here is that the high prices might get cemented. That manufacturers might start targeting those higher price points. As it happened with phones, for example. Scalpers are just capitalizing on the fact that the products are under-priced - the real value (what people are willing to pay) is significantly higher than MSRP. If a manufacturer won't perform the correction, they will seize the opportunity.
The market is a huge voting machine. Every time someone pays the inflated price, they are voting in favour of it, saying that the price is right. The more sales, the stronger the vote. If there are enough idiots in the world, they will set the prices for everybody. That's how it works. The really sad and dangerous aspect is that choosing a politician is like buying a product. If people suck at buying products, they are going to suck at choosing their political representation. Both systems (free market and democracy) rely on the majority of people doing the right thing. But we are not really teaching people how to be good economic or political agents. Doing the right thing is often hard. Just as good sounding things are often not true. That's a fact of life. If the right things were easy, we'd all be living in a paradise. We all want to instinctively minimize cost (optimize). The only reason to pay more, figuratively speaking, is the belief that it will pay off. And there you have the postponed gratification - you sacrifice today to benefit tomorrow.
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