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Is GPU shortage actually getting worse?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by neginfinity, Apr 29, 2021.

  1. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Everyone who says this has always failed to account for the additional cost of living expenses that arise when you have to worry about things like health insurance, dental care, infrastructure...
     
  2. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    Well, here in Sweden we have progressive tax so I pay a marginal tax of 55 percent. Which is all time low for 2021 it used to be well above 60 percent. And that's only counting the salary tax. We have additional tax that the empoyeer pays that is directly connected to my salary (it's hidden from the employee to try to make welfare seem cheaper than it is)

    And on all welfare we have income ceilings, so I pay more and receive less when I use those public functions.
     
  3. Ryiah

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    I'm too lazy to calculate our sales tax of 5.3%.

    Exactly. Good health insurance in my area is $500/mo. Good dental is $50/mo. Good vision is $25/mo.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2021
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  4. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    you mentioned hentai choice of 3 games, which are pretty much near rock bottom as far as quality goes.

    Choice of Games are making interactive fiction. That is an EXTREMELY niche genre. Also if they're making a narrative-based genre at this speed, they're rushing it. This kinda shows in the reviews. They have small number of reviews, and a lot of mixed/mostly positive ones...
     
  5. Ryiah

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    Choice of Games is a publisher not a developer. If you check the list of games releases there are only a few repeat authors.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_of_Games
    https://www.choiceofgames.com/looking-for-writers/
     
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  6. Murgilod

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    This doesn't address any of what I just said.
     
  7. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    Offcourse it does, the things you mentioned that you think are free in my country is actually insanely expensive. And because of the income ceilings I need to have private insurances on top of the public welfare
     
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  8. Ryiah

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    The point @Murgilod was making is that we pay the same amount in our countries. It's just nickle and dimed every way the government can think of. Just as an example I noticed the other day there is a special tax on pure electric vehicles in my state because the cost of maintaining the roads normally comes from our gas tax.

    If your country seems more expensive it's because your standard of living costs are higher to make up for a much higher minimum wage. Our minimum wage in Virginia only recently hit $9.50. Sweden is somewhere around $22.
     
  9. MDADigital

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    800 vs 1070 isn't nickle and dime difference. And that's just one tax (VAT)
     
  10. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Once again like I said earlier I was too lazy to calculate the sales tax of my product.
     
  11. MDADigital

    MDADigital

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    Ah OK so 800 is before taxes? But I doubt you have 25 percent VAT
     
  12. Ryiah

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    Yes, but I don't have government subsidized health insurance or education. A basic four year education in the United States is in excess of $100,000 USD.
     
  13. MDADigital

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    No but its rubbish anyway (you need a private insurance if you don't want to die because of undetected cancer or whatnot) and it costs way too much, again I pay 55 percent marginal tax. 66 percent if I include the employeer tax.

    Edit: we also have lower wages for qualified work
     
  14. Ryiah

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    If you were found to have cancer how much would you have to pay to get it properly treated? Basically what is the amount you have to pay out of pocket?
     
  15. MDADigital

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    Progressive tax starts insanely early and aggressive here. It reaches maximum level (same as I have) already at 77k USD yearly salary.
     
  16. neginfinity

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    I overlooked the part about games having different writers.

    However, if choice of games are a publisher, they can't be used as an example of ... I don't know, "Eeasy to Make" titles, like EternalAmbiguity seemed to imply. Writing a book is quite a bit of work.
     
  17. MDADigital

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    Then its cheap. And sweden have very good health care when they know what's wrong with you. The problem is the investigative health care. We have no yearly screenings etc. We have two or 3 magnet cameras in the entire country

    I pay about 1200 USD a month to the public health care. That would give me a good insurance in the US

    Edit: and I pay 200 USD on top of that for my private insurance
     
  18. Ryiah

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    We do too but you have to pay a small fortune to get it unless you're smart and know a trick. My dad for example needs a shot every two weeks that was going to cost a couple thousand per shot. A friend of ours had a similar situation and mentioned that they had contacted the drug company to ask about special rates.

    My dad ended up getting the drug for free because the company decided his income was too low. If we hadn't asked the drug company we wouldn't have found out though because the health insurance side of things never once mentioned the possibility.
     
  19. MDADigital

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    If you have top tier insurance you get very god security though. I'm not saying US model is the best though.

    Netherlands have the best model, they have a public insurance. And you can compliment it with a private one.
     
  20. Ryiah

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    Yeah I'm currently poking through the highest tier available to me through Anthem and the best they do is 50% coverage of speciality drugs which is what I believe cancer would fall under. Again though there are ways around the issue of not being able to afford them. You just have to be in the know.

    If I had a higher income I'd likely see better tiers but the only option is a customized search based off of my info.
     
  21. MDADigital

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    That was actually lower than I thought the best ones would give you.

    But keep in mind here you pay insane amounts of money every month for your entire career. Not only when you get sick.
     
  22. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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    It reminds me of what I heard from someone supposedly working as a nurse in NY (an online stranger).

    From their description it went roughly like this:

    Hospital stay may result in an outrageous bill. However, you may be able to negotiate it to have it reduced split into partial payments and so on. But that's only if you're aware that you can negotiate.... that results in horror stories about people with unthreaded illnesses, burst eardrums, people dying due to being unable to pay and so on...
     
  23. Ryiah

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    I had surgery back in December and I was fortunate that my health insurance covered the bulk of it. I ended up only having to pay a few hundred dollars. When I went to pay the software the hopistal goes through (MyChart) gave me the option of splitting the cost across multiple payments.

    That said I absolutely believe that there are places where the hospital quietly keeps this info to themselves.
     
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  24. MDADigital

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    I'm undergoing investigation, 2 years now, have trouble sleeping, breathing etc, etc. No diagnosis after 2 years. Last 2 months I have had constant headache. I have asked for magnet camera brain scan but no can do.
     
  25. EternalAmbiguity

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    I can't claim to know how easy it is for them to make (and I wasn't ever really talking about "easy."). However it's an example of lots of games being pushed out in a short amount of time, probably creating returns crypto could not, and thus leading to (or maintaining) a reality where they continue releasing lots of games rather than just mining crypto.

    Again, it's possibly my crypto number there (10 months to pay off, and then 10 more to make equal profit) was low, but as long as the "average" indie game is making significantly more than what crypto offers, I wouldn't expect low quality games to taper off because of crypto.

    Edit: and related to the hospital bills tangent, they can definitely reduce the bill if you get on their good side and ask. A big part of it is purely because it's partially paid by insurance (aka they can reduce it).
     
  26. neginfinity

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    A book can take a couple of months. If you hurry.

    The key word is "probably". You're in position where you can experiment and see if it works. Do you want to do it?
     
  27. EternalAmbiguity

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    I've written a novel, I'm familiar with that aspect. They make "choose your own adventure" games which is a bit different, and I'm not sure what their average total script length is.

    Me, no, but I'm also not the type of person who's interested in putting out a dozen games in a year, or in releasing crappy Flappy Bird clones. The original post claimed that they might jump to crypto because their motivation is purely easy cash. I'm saying that conclusion only works if the crypto offers near-equivalent returns to the potential clone game.
     
  28. MDADigital

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    No book of quality takes months
     
  29. neginfinity

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    Uh-huh (/sarcasm)

    "Clockwork Orange": 3 weeks.
    "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde": 3 days.

    You can easily find more examples online.
     
  30. MDADigital

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  31. A quality book takes time, usually. At least more often than not. But the "qualitiness" doesn't tell you anything about the financial success. As usual, there are quality books climbed lists and gained enough momentum to gather noticeable money and there are ones remained niche for some reason.
    The book industry is the same as the game industry or any other entertainment industry in general. You can choose to go on the artsy route and put something on the table you're proud of or you can start to print out trash for a quick buck. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I saw a couple of authors (I mean I know them personally) who were/are living off of romance novels. They have put out a "new" one in every two-three months (basic editing, basic design, printing press, delivery take time). It's equivalent to the asset flips in the video game industry.
     
  32. angrypenguin

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    Some businesses cost that much or more, sure. But plenty don't, and plenty of methods of generating income don't require starting your own business.

    From the first idea that popped into my head (ie: an obvious one, and probably not the best one) some quick research suggests that you'd need a $30k+ up front investment in crypto to match the average daily income (above expenses) of an Uber driver. The main costs for an Uber driver are things many people already have (a car and a phone), but also something that dedicated finance is often readily available for.

    Of course that's not passive income, but I doubt that nursing a fleet of GPUs, keeping up to date with trends, etc. is as really as passive as some people might suggest, either. And then there's the risk. The pandemic kind of messes with everything, but on the whole I'm more confident that people will still need to move around in 4 months than I am that nothing will have changed to mess with the value of my crypto farm. As you say, it has the dynamics of a bubble.

    Also, of course, an hourly job isn't as scalable as passive income in the long term. So if "grow passive income streams" is your goal then hourly income is a first step, rather than the whole solution. But it's a step which I see people skip, which they almost certainly shouldn't.
     
  33. angrypenguin

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    Are you saying that they put out 4 books a year? Because while I agree that editing, printing, shipping all take time, you can surely start developing your next product while that's happening with your previous one? Maybe not at 100% effort, but surely at something greater than zero.
     
  34. They have done their "real" passion-projects too in-between. The reason I know them because for a while I was involved in the fantasy- and sci-fi book business. They actually could write proper besides the "and Bobby's muscular abdomen pressed against her back while he was gently massaging her neck"... and stuff.
     
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  35. angrypenguin

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    Makes sense. Just working as much as they need, then doing what they really want to do.
     
  36. neginfinity

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    A literary equivalent of fast food, I guess? Well, I suppose it could work in this format. As in people want to eat, and not all of them want to eat delicacies... in the same way someone would be looking for a new variation of the romance formulas. (Honestly, korean/chinese manwa/manhua comes to mind with all the "I reincarnated as a villainess" works and ever-present Castle-nim).

    Well, I never said that crypto farm would bring money FOREVER, however it represents a relatively short term opportunity to make high return. Over time the cards will stop producing returns, at least for mining eth:

    Feasibility of being an uber driving depends on where you are, and rather than being an investment is a job. In my area, taxi driver doesn't really earn much.
     
  37. Joe-Censored

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    In the USA, if you work for a sizable company in the software industry (like many here would), you don't normally need to worry about healthcare costs much.

    The company will have a healthcare provider selected, and usually you'll choose from one of several coverage tiers. You and your company will split the costs, with the company normally paying the larger share. For me, covering a family of 4, I pay $800 per month for the highest tier available with Anthem through my company plan.

    For low income people, the USA actually has pretty good coverage all things considered. The federal government gives lots of money to the states to operate the medic-aid program. In my state of California they try to get clever with the name, calling it MediCal, which makes it very difficult to google. Basically, you have to go to busy clinics instead of normal doctor offices for simple things and checkups, but otherwise everything is free and the same level of coverage as someone with private insurance. Spend 2 days in ICU for something serious? Free. Need almost any prescription? Free. Need a bone X-ray and cast? Free.

    My wife was on MediCal before we met, and she keeps complaining about our $35 co-pay for doctor visits, and even smaller prescription costs, asking why we have to pay anything because she never had to pay for a single thing before. She even suggested we get divorced so she and the kids could get back on MediCal. At least I hope that's the reason :p

    The people who get screwed the worst in the USA, are small business owners, and people who get paid enough so they don't qualify for low income healthcare.
     
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  38. stain2319

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    Yep Joe, well said.
    "too poor to afford healthcare, not poor enough to get it from the government" is a real thing, I lived a lot of my life in that boat.
     
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  39. MDADigital

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    Yeah I know. Its awesome. We have those benefits here too, only that our private health care insurances doesn't add much benefits on top of the public health care, you can skip waiting lists for simpler surgery like a knee surgery, etc.

    I got to see a lung specialist a little quicker becasue of my private insurance, but that's about it
     
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  40. Joe-Censored

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    Yeah it is definitely some form of bubble. We've got crypto prices partly responsible for the GPU shortages, but all those GPU's are increasing the supply of crypto. You've got people buying into the crypto market to chase the gains, but that will only push up the prices for so long with increasing supply. At some point the price peaks, some of the gains chasers get cold feet, and it drops. If the price doesn't quickly recover, you'll see less interest in buying GPU's for crypto, and if it drops low enough for long enough you'll see a flood of GPU's dumped on the used market.
     
  41. neginfinity

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    It looks like the situation is progressing somewhere.

    All RTX cards in my region are now completely gone, and I'm seeing $1600..$1900(!) price tag online for 12gb edition of rtx 3060. There are few GTX 1660 for sale, at pricepoint of roughly $950. There's also a $4500 10GB 3080 from another region.

    At the same time Musk has crashed bitcoin again... or so the news sources say.
     
  42. Ryiah

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    He's single-handedly demonstrating why an unregulated currency is not a sound choice.
     
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  43. Murgilod

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    He's also repeatedly demonstrated why people like him and Jacob Wohl need to be kept as far away from markets in general as possible. Dude's had multiple SEC filings for doing stuff like this with Tesla stock.
     
  44. neginfinity

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    I'm not quite sure that he's proving THAT. He is proving "something", but I'm not sure what that something is.

    Modern day countries use fiat currencies that has value assigned to it through trading, and the new money is made thorugh bank loans.

    Bitcoin.... rather than currency it reminds me the Tulips from Tulip craze, or bubble stocks. I'm not sure if it is even suitable to be used as money anymore, due to the transaction fees.
     
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  45. Ryiah

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    I might be using the wrong terminology but the fact that someone can say something and it suddenly crashes is a good sign that the currency is best avoided for anything serious. Fiat currency at least in the United States has ways of being artificially maintained if things go crazy.
     
  46. neginfinity

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    That happens to stocks. Words of someone affects perceived value and investors bail or rush to buy. Doing this intentionally is called "stock market manipulation", and is punishabl offense.

    This gentlemen comes to mind:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner

    His company lost 500 million of value due to a poor choice of words. Some online articles describing this episode were title "how to lose half a billion in ten seconds" or something.

    Long story short he badmouthed his own product as a "joke". It didn't work well.
     
  47. CityGen3D

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    That is why holding lots of cash is bad though. Governments can just print more of it, which devalues the cash you hold over time because of inflation. This is particularly pertinent right now because the US has pumped trillions of USD into the world economy for stimulus (and the value of USD has therefore gone down).

    Some cryptos, although not all, have a finite supply and are therefore deflationary, which over time causes their price to increase.

    So its better to think of Bitcoin as a store of value like gold, it's never really going to be used to buy stuff on a daily basis, at least not while it's so volatile. You just buy and hold it, in preference to cash reserves.

    Elon knows all this, accepting Bitcoin for payment was just a bit of a gimmick. But Tesla are now covering themselves because they don't wont to lose government funding being associated with something that has environmental concerns.

    The recent dip was short term retail investors panic selling, a lot of institutions were buying the dip. Tesla are also continuing to hold most of their Bitcoin on their balance sheet in preference to cash.
     
  48. EternalAmbiguity

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    I've actually been wondering about where to put cash - my bank's money market account is absurdly low - but Bitcoin still seems like a bad idea. You're depending on Bitcoin still being around and not being regulated eventually to enforce some fixed price. Seems like more traditional methods like buying land would be better.
     
  49. neginfinity

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    Gold isn't this volatile, though.

    One more thing.
    Amusingly, this seems to be the point of fiat currencies. Because when money loses value over time, you're encouraged to spend or invest it. This keeps economy rolling.

    On other hand, if the value of currency INCREASES over time (gold backed currency), then you're encouraged to hold onto it and never spend it, which... slows down the economy and discourages the exchange of goods.
     
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  50. MDADigital

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    Thats a constant stress, I have over 150k USD on a normal bank account with close to zero interest (below the
    yearly inflation). But I dont have time or interest to invest :p
     
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