[ravel-bar-foo]

Your initial example is not making an argument against buffers in the supply chain, but against large production runs requiring large inputs. In the context of logistics, I think of a buffer as a system that slowly fills up due to excess capacity greater than demand, which can be drawn down in times when demand exceeds production. You seem to be referring to a buffer as a process which requires large inputs to get start producing. Ironically, a buffer as I use the term would decrease the 175s startup time for your "buffered" factory.

In real life, factories/farms/hospitals are not designed to agilely shut down and start up again while awaiting inputs, or when there is no demand for the output. Upon a drop in inputs the company goes bankrupt, the crop doesn't get planted, or the patient dies. Upon a drop in demand the company goes bankrupt, the crop gets thrown out, or the travel nurses go elsewhere. Where flexibility in supplies is not an option, the solution is to have a buffer of money (or credit), seed, or medical supplies to smooth out anticipated supply shocks, and we buffer against demand shocks with money/credit, features markets, storage facilities, and some hospital inefficiency.

[dragontamer]

> You seem to be referring to a buffer as a process which requires large inputs to get start producing.

No.

> I think of a buffer as a system that slowly fills up due to excess capacity greater than demand, which can be drawn down in times when demand exceeds production.

Yes. That's what I mean.

The steel furnaces __use iron__. This means that during the buffering process, the steel furnaces are "saving up iron", and preventing the rest of your factory from using iron.

That is to say: the 35,000 iron you put into the steel furnace __COULD HAVE BEEN USED__ in the yellow-belt portion of your factory, and could have instead made 23333 yellow belts.

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Its not worthwhile to save up 7000 steel (aka: 35,000 effective iron) when that iron could have been used to make _OTHER_ parts of your factory do important things.

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It doesn't matter if you "buffer up" that 35,000 iron slowly, quickly, all at once or over anything. Any such buffering means your "steel portion" has arbitrarily decided that the iron should be saved here, in a box unused. While shortages propagate outward to all the other parts of your Factorio where you __COULD__ have been using the iron instead.

[ravel-bar-foo]

Ok. So the problem is that your furnaces are too greedy. They are buffering up in the absence of oversupply. There are many in-game solutions to that, but in reality we use price signals. When price signals are not available, we shame people for being greedy and hoarding.

[dragontamer]

Well, what if some of us think that the cryptominers are being too greedy, and maybe they should cut back on their chip orders so that car companies get more chips?

This chip shortage thing was foreseen in March: 7 months ago. That was more than enough time for a new batch of chips to be made or for production runs to be reallocated.

EDIT: Taiwan seems to think some hoarding is going on: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4306366. We know that all chip-manufacturers are using more wafers and creating more chips than ever before. Yes, even this year (even as Texas got that cold-snap and frozen power plants). So why do we have a chip shortage?