[freediddy]

25k is definitely a lot but I did the risk analysis and I figured worst case I would lose a 1000-2000 after a year of playing around with it, so I look at it more like renting (I'm going to keep the Macbook Pro no matter what since I needed a new one).

[cronin101]

Nitpicking, but the worst case of spending $25k is unforeseen circumstances that write off the entire asset. I don’t think -$2000 is a conservative enough figure for standard depreciation either (a lot can happen in a year)

[throwawaytea]

Either I don't understand the used apple market.. or I agree this is crazy. Someone spends $25k on new hardware, waits a year, and expects to sell it for $23k? Unless the ram issues save him, and cost of new goes up, I don't see how that was going to work.

[cortesoft]

Well, Apple is literally not offering the M3 512GB studios currently. You can’t even back order one.

They are selling on EBay for over $20k, used.

[digitaltrees]

It’s hard to know if any of these eBay listing are real or actual sales. Lots of scams.

[gbgarbeb]

The ones sold for $25k from established sellers are legit. Filter by "sold."

The 0-reputation account in Spain selling an M3U 512GB for $4200 is 100% fraud.

[digitaltrees]

oh young grasshopper, I see you dont know that money launderers love the ebay hype cycle. Its REALLY common on high dollar hot items to have phantom transactions where parties are on both sides of the transaction to clean illicit money. The high price tag and high volume amount of transactions hides the illicit signal. I have tried to buy a few of these mac studios only to have the transaction cancelled because I wasnt the dirty money on the other side.

[jcelerier]

You could almost sell a RTX 3090 for more today than what it cost brand new when it came out six years ago

[conradkay]

It's still very contrarian to expect GPUs won't depreciate rapidly. Yes 3090s were a good investment then, but way worse than just buying Nvidia stock directly

[freediddy]

How did we go from "I expect to lose only 1000-2000 if I try to sell my used equipment" to "you should have just bought NVDA to get a better return." The point wasn't the better return, the point is that I wouldn't lose all my initial investment if i decided I wanted to sell it.

And the fact of the matter is that in 2026, all electronics has gone up, not down, and sought-after GPUs have gone up in price in the used market.

[latentsea]

Waiting for them to come down any day now. Been waiting since 2017.

[oblio]

First it was crypto, now AI. Just because the market can stay irrational for very long doesn't mean crashes don't happen. What nobody knows is when.

[hnav]

This is the case in lots of markets, e.g. look at used cars, luxury goods and more. Some of it is driven by inflation/the rapid devaluation of the dollar. General and AI-adjacent compute in particular hasn't come down in price in a long while.

[UltraSane]

A lot of expensive things hold their value well. I have a friend who is really into telescopes and he now owns a $100,000 telescope but he didn't directly buy such an expensive scope. He started out with much cheaper ones and was able to sell them for about what he bought them for to help fund more expensive ones over 20 years. It is really interesting.

[balls187]

Thank god. I’ve been waiting to have a reason to tell someone I collect fountain pens.

Computers depreciate because they are obviously being supplanted by newer better models—until they become vintage and then move into collectibles.

[majormajor]

Apple products have had relatively high resale for a while. Only losing 8% in a year is probably extra unusual, and 1-year-old wasn't really ever the sweet spot, but a "sell used privately after a few years, roll onto the new one" has been a relatively common play.

Doing this particular one is definitely expecting the market squeeze to continue. "Worst case" is back to more "normal" depreciation. Where I'd expect to only be able to recoup more like 18k. But... if you look at GPU prices the last 3 years... it's not a crazy assumption that it won't drop that fast.

iPhone example since those are easiest to find in quantity: new iPhone 16 Pro Max for $1200, Gazelle would want $866 for "execllent" condition. Lost ~28% for one-model-back. iPhone 15 Pro Max, though: excellent priced at $667 here, only down another 23%, and gives you basically half-priced-upgrade if you can sell it for that and roll into the newest.

So to have never-more-than-one-model-old rough estimate at today's value-holding you'd be out $3600 for three new phones, with getting 1732 of that back, or 1868 for it (with a $334-per-year incremental cost of upgrade).

For never-more-than-two-models-back you'd be out $2400, getting back $866, for net $1534 spend, with a $167 incremental per-year upgrade cost once you buy the first one. Pretty good if you keep the phone in excellent condition and are happy to budget a bit over $10/month to be on a every-two-year upgrade train.

Well, you'd also eat the tax...

https://buy.gazelle.com/products/iphone-16-pro-max-256gb-unl...

https://buy.gazelle.com/products/iphone-15-pro-max-256gb-unl...

[consp]

What you describe is something people with enough to make the first purchase and eat the cost when it breaks have been doing for years e.g. with cars. People on the lower end of money scale tend to use products for well over their economic lifetime saving way more and buying a cheap replacement if it breaks. Notable exception as stated being phones for some reason as it likely is a status symbol for more people in a [insert preferred external sexual characteristic] measuring contest.

[bionsystem]

> "Worst case" is back to more "normal" depreciation.

I would absolutely not count on that, if and when it drops it will drop hard.

[xienze]

> I don’t think -$2000 is a conservative enough figure for standard depreciation either (a lot can happen in a year)

We aren't exactly in "standard" times and haven't been for quite a while. Even five year old graphics cards are worth more today than they were just a year ago. Things will obviously depreciate at some point, but you gotta throw your existing notions of how quickly and how much hardware will depreciate out the window. There's just been too much money dumped into AI for a "well I guess this won't ever pan out, let's dump all this hardware to recoup our costs" moment to happen and tank the price of everything suddenly IMO.

And that's not even getting into the other geopolitical stuff going on right now. Strange times.

[globnomulous]

I wouldn't call this nitpicking. This is how people who are careful with money think. I learned embarrassingly late to stop justifying purchases by making predictions about future returns. I treat everything as having zero value as soon as I purchase it. Thinking otherwise is, for me, always a dangerous rationalization -- always a craving that's trying to outmaneuver sense.

[BLKNSLVR]

Aren't things like this seeing 'negative depreciation' these days?

[manyatoms]

"inflation"

[jiggunjer]

"appreciation"

[BLKNSLVR]

My phrasing was just to point out things moving in the opposite direction to what has previously been considered normal (which is also the economically intended 'normal').

[margalabargala]

Sure, they took a gamble that they wouldn't be able to sell it used.

If you are able to tie up $25k for a few years just for shiggles, you clearly are able to make do fine without that money and if lost it would be at worst annoying, not catastrophic.

[jaxn]

I assume he is calculating the loss as depreciation - what they would have spent on cloud bills if they hadn’t been doing this locally.

[kristopolous]

I mean whatever. It's workstation/server class hardware, that's how much it's been for a long time

[MagicMoonlight]

Was this risk analysis just AI slop?

[blitzar]

I think op would make a really good pope too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48118672