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| ▲ | NetMageSCW a day ago | parent | next [-] | | He (and nVidia) have no responsibility to consumers. They have a responsibility to their largest customers and to their shareholders. | | |
| ▲ | soraminazuki a day ago | parent | next [-] | | He and NVIDIA should never have been in a position where they can single-handedly dictate where the world's GPU supplies go to. They should never have been able to form a circle jerk economy with a handful of hyperscalers and AI labs. They should never have been a chokepoint for the entire personal computing industry, which is being wiped out right now due to the artificial shortage of critical components. The lack of regulation and/or enforcement has brought about this completely textbook case of market failure with damaging consequences for the broader industry and society as a whole. It was the responsibility of governments to prevent this exact situation. But here we are. Jensen Huang and NVIDIA brought themselves to a situation where they are responsible. They should be held accountable for the negative externalities they cause. | | |
| ▲ | user43928 a day ago | parent [-] | | Last I checked one can buy personal computers just fine at a moderate price increase. You cannot buy flagship Nvidia consumer GPUs, and the next level down, the 5080, currently retails approximately at a 100% price increase. Low VRAM GPUs such as the 5070 at 12GB are not affected much, retailing at 15% above MSRP. Absent another massive expansion in AI demand due to new real applications, we are probably going to see affordable high-end consumer products in 2028. Hardly the drama you make it sound like, and calling for regulation or legal consequences seems overblown to me. |
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| ▲ | bushliketheplan a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I understand this is true in a strictly legal and financial sense. I hope you are simply pointing out a factual statement and not bootlicking for companies with business practices that make your own life worse? | | |
| ▲ | gruez a day ago | parent | next [-] | | >I understand this is true in a strictly legal and financial sense. "Legal and financial sense" is how you run a business. Getting salty because a company decided to switch to a more profitable customer, while understandable, is also totally unreasonable. It's like getting mad at a band for selling $1000 concert tickets after they made it big. Doubly so when the product segment being affected is essentially a luxury product to begin with. | | |
| ▲ | ehnto a day ago | parent | next [-] | | You're not really arguing anything here except that greed is expected, which is fair but not logical in the sense that, there is nothing about a business that says it has to operate this way, and no law that says being a fair and good entity in our community is necessarily going to bankrupt them. It's a choice leadership makes, for obvious and boring reasons, to fuck over the general community. Big music artists could totally sell cheaper tickets and still make enormous piles of cash. Nvidia could have continued supporting the consumer market alongside their AI ambitions. The sad part is that we simply don't expect it anymore, because we no longer see businesses as part of our communities. Just as profit engines, with no other goal. Companies don't exist in a vacuum, they are entities in our community, and we should expect them to behave in a way that is beneficial and fair, and sometimes that might be at the expense of unrealised profits. Not bankruptcy obviously, but there's a wide gamut of extreme prosperity between bankrupt and trillion dollar market cap. | | |
| ▲ | gruez a day ago | parent [-] | | >Big music artists could totally sell cheaper tickets and still make enormous piles of cash. >Nvidia could have continued supporting the consumer market alongside their AI ambitions. No, in both cases they'll just get scalped. If you're selling something for $1 that the market is willing to pay $10 for, the market will find a way to equalize this. >Companies don't exist in a vacuum, they are entities in our community, and we should expect them to behave in a way that is beneficial and fair, and sometimes that might be at the expense of unrealised profits. Not bankruptcy obviously, but there's a wide gamut of extreme prosperity between bankrupt and trillion dollar market cap. Give me a break. This might work if it's walmart replacing a dozen local shops with a giant big box store on the edge of town, but GPUs are already a niche luxury product. If there's one sector where it's justified for companies to make outsized profits on, it's this. Otherwise it's as out of touch as getting mad at Hermes for selling $10k hand bags. | | |
| ▲ | ehnto a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes so thinking purely in corporate thoughts, the supply is the issue on concerts and GPUs. For supply constrained items like concert space, or theme parks, other countries where profit isn't the dominant motive will sell tickets via lotteries or first in, first serve, ID linked and no reselling. For the GPU situation, consumer GPU supply is constrained because demand isn't being met. It's not being met (in my understanding) because NVidia has a monopoly on the software ecosystem around the workloads that are diverting consumer GPU supply to businesses, first crypto, recently AI. The solution would have been to create and supply two different verticals independently, and to open the ecosystem up for other manufacturers to help meet B2B supply. There is precedent for this going in different directions, but it was a choice nVidia made to squeeze the market for every penny. Extremely good business. Shareholders are stoked, a fantastic win for the stock market. I can't worry about all things but since you bring hermes bags up, yes that is also a pretty clear sign of a perverse economy. Selling an at-cost $10 bag for $10,000 is pretty disappointing behaviour by the seller and the buyer. The seller does it because they can, and the buyer does it because they don't mind getting fleeced. The key difference there is you can still get full utility from a bag for $15, but you have to participate in this new GPU market to get a GPU. This is the world we live in, I get that, but it's no less disappointing to see the majority of people get ditched for the sake of the shareholders time and time again. If you feel that this isn't what's happening then I would be interested in that, otherwise we might just disagree on some base principles which is fine but probably not worth debating. | | |
| ▲ | gruez a day ago | parent [-] | | >For supply constrained items like concert space, or theme parks, other countries where profit isn't the dominant motive will sell tickets via lotteries or first in, first serve, ID linked and no reselling. How are you going to enforce this for GPUs? Even if you somehow add the remote tracking systems that AI safety proponents have been asking for, you can still make a handy profit renting out your GPU to people who want to play gta6 or whatever. >because NVidia has a monopoly on the software ecosystem around the workloads that are diverting consumer GPU supply to businesses, first crypto, recently AI Maybe if you need CUDA specifically for AI workloads. For gaming AMD or intel is perfectly serviceable. It's not as good as a RTX 5090, but again that's like complaining you can only afford a LV bag rather than a Hermes (the embarrassment!) >The key difference there is you can still get full utility from a bag for $15, but you have to participate in this new GPU market to get a GPU. Only if you're only interested in carrying stuff, but not if you're interested in status signaling. The same applies to some extent for concerts. How many people are going for the experience of nosebleed seats (or standing room), overpriced food, and other travel hassles, vs the social cachet of being to a limited concert? |
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| ▲ | bigstrat2003 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > "Legal and financial sense" is how you run a business. That is how immoral people run a business. But there are a great many businesses in this country run by people who (correctly) recognize that there are higher obligations than the law and making a profit. Treating your customers fairly, making good products, doing things in an ethical way... these are not optional to a well-adjusted person, even if not required by the law. Continuing to serve your loyal customers even has benefits above and beyond the intangible. When the bubble pops (and it will pop), Nvidia's sales to AI customers will crater. When that day comes, they will come to regret chasing away all the customers who would still be giving them business if they had not been cast aside as "not profitable enough, sorry guys". | | |
| ▲ | gruez a day ago | parent [-] | | >That is how immoral people run a business. But there are a great many businesses in this country run by people who (correctly) recognize that there are higher obligations than the law and making a profit. Treating your customers fairly, making good products, doing things in an ethical way... these are not optional to a well-adjusted person, even if not required by the law. Higher obligations like... letting sweaty PC gamers run GTA 6 at 4K? I'm only half joking with the characterization, but AI at least have a good story going for it, productivity gains, competition with china, etc. What does gaming have going for it? For a slightly less sympathitic example, imagine there's some water shortage and datacenters[1] bought up all the water rights, forcing golfers to play on brown golf courses. Are we really supposed to be mad at either the datacenters or the farmers that sold the water rights, because they weren't serving the "higher obligations" of golfers wanting green golf courses? [1] yes, I know they don't actually use that much water. >When the bubble pops (and it will pop), Nvidia's sales to AI customers will crater. When that day comes, they will come to regret chasing away all the customers who would still be giving them business if they had not been cast aside as "not profitable enough, sorry guys". As much gamers would love this revenge fantasy to happen it's not going to happen. I wager there's approximately zero brand loyalty in the PC gaming market. If nvidia is going to lose customers, it's because they're behind technologically. | | |
| ▲ | watwut a day ago | parent [-] | | > but AI at least have a good story going for it, It was not advancing good story. If you listened to CEO it was advancing pretty horrifying story of obsoleting people and centralizing all power into their own hands. |
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| ▲ | clivedup a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think he's trying to help people understand that "He was responsible for hanging consumers out to dry" is some sort of wishful thinking. Demand has far exceeded supply, and so consumers are priced out. This is no different than how most developing countries have been priced out of top GPUs since the dawn of computing. It sucks, but to pin the blame on someone for not selling you a GPU at below market rates is... not fruitful. | | |
| ▲ | soraminazuki a day ago | parent [-] | | A handful of monopolies or oligopolies dealing with each other and cutting the rest of the world out is a classic example of market failure. It's not supply and demand determining the right price, because that requires a fair and competitive market, something that market fundamentalists always overlook. | | |
| ▲ | clivedup a day ago | parent [-] | | The fabs are maxed out. LLM providers document making 38 USD/hour/card. https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepInfer/blob/main/doc%2Finf... Where is the conspiracy? | | |
| ▲ | soraminazuki 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | Whether the fabs may be maxed out or not doesn't mean anything outside of the handful of companies that secured a multi-year contract with the chip makers. How much some company charges for rented GPU capacity just shows us that GPU prices are exorbitantly high, not that the market is competitive nor fair. Acknowledging widely publicized multi-year contracts between the chip makers, hyperscalers, and AI labs isn't a "conspiracy." I don't get this. What's up with all the overzealous AI proponents using aggressive deny, deflect, discredit tactics against any criticism of the world's most powerful companies acting against the public interest? What's in it for them? |
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| ▲ | vintermann a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | He had very little say in the forces that "destroyed the PC market". When he co-founded NVidia, it wasn't to become a geopolitical power player - no one could have predicted that 3d accelerator cards for gaming on PCs would have that kind of impact. If anything, NVidia has made some questionable business moves to not abandon their initial market, such as trying to prevent crypto mining on the cheaper cards meant for gaming. His successor, however, probably got in position deliberately seeking geopolitical power. They're going to be worse in every way (except cheating on their spouse with subordinates, they're probably not going to do that). |
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