[nullifidian]

The official reason is availability -- it's nigh impossible for a gamer to buy a GPU right now for something close to MSRP. The real reason is probably a desire to prevent miners from selling their GPUs on the second hand market, thus increasing sales of new GPUs.

[zokier]

Nvidia is still trying to fulfill orders for 3080 from launch day. The availability problem is real. They do not need to artificially increase the demand for their GPUs if they already are selling way more than they can deliver.

[arianon]

That's true today, but will it remain true when the cryptocurrency bull run ends, we enter a bear market, and mining becomes far less profitable? Not just that, but the most profitable coin to mine, Ethereum, is on track to move away from Proof-of-Work, so we can expect a lot of second-hand cards to be sold at fire-sale prices in 2022.

[madamelic]

The problem isn't miners. The problem is no one wants to stop bots and scalpers from buying them en masse.

If eBay prevented scalping and e-commerce created bot protections, demand would stop being absurd.

Nvidia stopped selling cards on their site because they couldn't figure out how to prevent bots from buying them all. Not to mention Nvidia is selling cards directly to large miners by the pallet load.

[paulmd]

Why should ebay prevent scalping? That's the entire reason their site exists, to see who is willing to pay the most for scarce goods.

Ebay is not going to go away just because it hurts gamers' fee-fees. Nor should it. And I say this as someone who is generally opposed to mining and generally upset with 30-series availability. Demanding that ebay shut down is both a ludicrous over-reaction and will not solve anything anyway.

You're literally blaming the market for providing a clearing-price. If you want to reduce demand for gaming cards, forcing miners into their own product segment is the most plausible way to do that, then the clearing-price falls.

[chickenpotpie]

I don’t think scalpers can drive up prices long term. What’s the difference between all the scalpers having the cards and nvidia having the cards? Either way people are only going to pay what the card is worth to them. If cryptocurrency miners buy the cards, they’re not reselling them.