News John Carmack Proposes a Way to Fight GPU & Console Shortages

[Heat_Fan89]

This is nothing more than corporate greed. It does absolutely nothing for the consumer and does nothing to combat the inflated prices.

How is it corporate greed because that phrase is used a lot? A consumer is someone who is buying a product. It would have been better to say "gamer" instead of consumer because someone who is buying these GPU cards is also a consumer including those who purchased them for mining.

 

[ThatStonedArrow]

How is it corporate greed because that phrase is used a lot? A consumer is someone who is buying a product. It would have been better to say "gamer" instead of consumer because someone who is buying these GPU cards is also a consumer including those who purchased them for mining.

That's why I said consumer and not gamer even if they are using them to mine why should they pay inflated prices. Now if we are talking about distribution and not just combating the price gouging then that's solved easier by making anyone buying a console register it in store/estore before checkout and supply an ID to verify that the product is both going to a real person and that they are only getting one. Even in households where there's normally more than one because of children each getting their own or parents getting theirs and their child at the point should be limited to one per house hold.

Edit: the corporate greed part is because this man knows this won't combat the cost issue only move who gets the money.

 

[jasonf2]

There just needs to be an federal anti price gouging and anti-automated procurement law put forward that includes goods other than critical items. The specific language of the law is tricky but not impossible. Etailers that broker the transaction need to be included in the fine structure. Take the profit out for the scalpers, their means to corner purchases, and the place they can readily sell it away and they will fade rapidly. I know you won't be able to control it all, but at this point the unfortunate reality is that amazon and ebay are at the heart of the problem by brokering the gross volume of the deals at the sell. The rest of the blame lies on etailer's blind eyes ignoring that their limit 1 per household policing mechanisms are a joke and being circumvented by bots that are easily available. Everyone here but the consumer is making too much money to self regulate and as long as they can fein "trying" they will continue to allow the situation to exist. In this scenario the only two groups that have any reason to want to impose regulation are the consumers and console manufacturers. The consumers because we either are paying through the nose in this shortage or going without and the console manufactures because they actually want these consoles to be consumed for subscription service fees, not locked up in a warehouse waiting to be sold at 200% markup over msrp. Both Sony and Microsoft should be unhappy about the distortion and consumers should be writing their letters to congress. Until consumers get organized on this nothing will change because the very companies that would have to self regulate are making hand over fist money off of the practice. So stop complaining and write your senators.

 

[ThatStonedArrow]

Part of the problem is it needs to be a percentage thing not a flat rate. This past week here in texas gas prices shot up almost 200% when the max increase allowed is 20%. As long as they make enough profit to cover the fines it does nothing to fine them. I think if you get caught price gouging whatever percent you raised it is what you pay. Then it completely removes the incentive.

 

[Dragonwatcher]

Easiest way is to have the chip manufacturer's force the distribution channel into a methodology that limits the purchase of items to a max of 2. The maximum is to either a single shipping address. P.O. boxes not allowed yet A.P.O. and F.P.O (for the military and foreign service personnel) would be allowed for a maximum of 2. This is enforced by retaining the shipping address and correlating it with any order. Also retaining the payment method used so it cannot be used again for a second purchase of the same item family again within 30 days(family item being GPU, CPU, or Console). Barring that they can always register the product serial number to the credit card used for purchase and then require that same card number be entered when the product is registered for the first time(similar to how cell phone sim cards are done). Using the second method would mean that the scalper would be either buying a ton of prepaid cards and having to register each and every one of them or be exposing his credit card numbers to every victim of his scalping.

Any entity that refuses to participate in the form of restriction be it either a retail outlet or AIB partner selling to the retail outlets would find themselves without any chips while everyone else get them. AMD wanted a method in place before they launched the Zen3 and Big Navi products they were told it was there, but obviously it wasn't. This would put the final control back into the manufacturers hands and work to eliminate the scalpers.

 

[naveed777]

Here is an idea for thought... HOW ABOUT A DAMN WAITLIST? One per person! How hard can that be for the IT/Tech community to come up with. Sheesh.

 

[Co BIY]

Here is an idea for thought... HOW ABOUT A DAMN WAITLIST?

There is a waitlist. It's at Samsung and TSMC for wafer starts next year.

Those spots are going for above MSRP too!

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tmsc-is-reportedly-terminating-discounts-and-increasing-prices

 

[oldcracc]

Game developer proposes 'transparent' auctions to fight hardware shortages.

John Carmack Proposes a Way to Fight GPU & Console Shortages : Read more

I can't see this working for a variety of reasons, mostly being that this will be free pickings for most scalpers who would then drive up the auction to exorbitant prices because unlike the average consumer, they can afford to. I can't see this improving prices in the long run, and would just lead to the cards being more expensive.

 

[jasonf2]

Easiest way is to have the chip manufacturer's force the distribution channel into a methodology that limits the purchase of items to a max of 2. The maximum is to either a single shipping address. P.O. boxes not allowed yet A.P.O. and F.P.O (for the military and foreign service personnel) would be allowed for a maximum of 2. This is enforced by retaining the shipping address and correlating it with any order. Also retaining the payment method used so it cannot be used again for a second purchase of the same item family again within 30 days(family item being GPU, CPU, or Console). Barring that they can always register the product serial number to the credit card used for purchase and then require that same card number be entered when the product is registered for the first time(similar to how cell phone sim cards are done). Using the second method would mean that the scalper would be either buying a ton of prepaid cards and having to register each and every one of them or be exposing his credit card numbers to every victim of his scalping.

Any entity that refuses to participate in the form of restriction be it either a retail outlet or AIB partner selling to the retail outlets would find themselves without any chips while everyone else get them. AMD wanted a method in place before they launched the Zen3 and Big Navi products they were told it was there, but obviously it wasn't. This would put the final control back into the manufacturers hands and work to eliminate the scalpers.

I have put my brain to this quite a bit over the last year or two. There are hundreds of simple self regulation paths that could be used to shut this down overnight. Your solution falls in that group for me. The failing point to all of them is that it requires self regulation from entities that will make more money by ignoring the issue. The cost of implementing your system would be all on the manufacturer and enforcement would be difficult if not impossible. The manufacturer doesn't want to spend more or deal with the hassle. If you just want a way to stop this that is much more elegant, but requires self regulation from a group that would lose money from it, just require the third party auction sites to establish an MSRP moratorium for 90 days post launch of new products. Ebay will never do it because they would loose a huge amount of money in sales commissions. Everyone in this chain makes money except for the consumer. With that in mind the only way any solution becomes viable is thru consumer protection legislation.