AI bots (probably powered by NVIDIA chips) would gobble those up in seconds.
Because it would immediately go to scalpers anyway. Like, say the 5090 - I'm seeing prices of almost 7000€ for that thing [1]. Assuming without AI it would be priced at 1500€ - I could make about 3 months of rent just by immediately selling the GPU to the next reseller who then peddles it to some AI training farm. And in this economy, oh hell yes I would.
> When the AI bubble bursts, Nvidia is going to be Enron.
Nah. NVIDIA was a money printer way before AI was a thing. Post-collapse they will still be a money printer, just at lower speed.
The ones who are going to get fucked over hard when the AI bubble pops is pensioners, the generation who is just entering the workforce (2007ff had an aftereffect in wage depression lasting for up to a decade), and everyone who took up investments to service the AI demand (utilities, construction companies and the likes).
[1] https://www.pccomponentes.de/msi-geforce-rtx-5090-ventus-3x-...
No they wouldn't, tens of thousands of unique users would be in line with dozens or hundreds of scalpers, if they're all allowed to buy one every 180 days per payment method, the end users actually get a fighting chance. Today they have no chance.
There is enough profit to pay people to buy stuff and resell it.
I've watched vans dropping of an endless stream of people in the parking lot of my local Costco to buy out all the cases of Pokemon cards within 20 minutes of the "random" drop they put on the floor. They go in, buy the max quantity of the item with cash provided by their keeper, bring it back to the van with a receipt and change, and get the $20-30 per item pay they were promised. There were 2 or 3 'legit' buyers out of hundreds of obvious straw buyers.
If the profit per item is $4-5k, expect this to go into turbo mode and be done in a marketplace/automated fashion and go viral. Just sign up to your favorite scalper's platform, submit your information, get a quote and a prepaid label and drop the box you got from nVidia off at USPS the next day. That "tens of thousands" of individuals will turn into "millions" really quick once it gets known there is rent money involved by clicking a few buttons and it goes viral on all the social media platforms.
The only way out from that is manufacturer enough cards to meet demand, and at that point the retail channel doesn't really matter.