u/cecilkorik — cecilkorik

No, they can't. And the "biggest name" in PC gaming doesn't mean they're the biggest actual company in PC gaming, much less the biggest company in computing as a whole. They're not even in the same league as datacenter operators and builders anymore. Nobody is. Maybe they *should* be. I think they deserve to be. But they aren't. I too, wish the entire economy still made sense. But it's not Valve's fault that it doesn't. They are not the ones causing this to be a reality, but it is still the reality whether it makes sense or not and whether we agree with it or not.

It's very likely a prerequisite, unfortunately.

Yes, we need the Torment Nexus as quickly as possible. Imagine how horrible it would be if we were not the first ones to have a Torment Nexus!

Obligatory reminder that they don't care that he started a war of aggression killing innocent people to seize their land.

They only care that he's *failed* at it. The Russian people are not innocent.

It is definitely incredibly common, yes. Like I said, the laws are generally not effectively enforced, and they're also intentionally limited. For some reason, we have decided it is totally acceptable to do that when you don't have a recognized monopoly position, which Sony doesn't in that market. It's very particular, it's very specific, and it's very subjective, which is probably a huge part of why they aren't effectively enforced. Also, companies know all the ways to get around the ways the laws are written if they really want to.

We still don't really follow them even when the laws probably do apply though, it's just vestigial at this point. We're supposed to believe the antitrust laws were only meant for those old, bad monopolies like Standard Oil and Ma Bell. We don't really have monopolies like that anymore, all our monopolies are the good kind of monopolies that don't harm society, or they're not monopolies at all, they're coordinating oligopolies that constantly partner with and all own chunks of each other, which means they're also perfectly fine and not any kind of bad monopoly at all.

I didn't write the laws, there are lots of things about them that I think could be vastly improved. But I do agree with their intent, and we shouldn't forget what their intent is, just because our current financial and political environment is not interested in them.

I am not a lawyer, but as far as I know that's actually incorrect, selling a product below cost is considered predatory dumping, as it means literally nobody can afford to compete with you on anything resembling a level playing field. How is any competitor supposed to release a competing product when Gabe is using his own financial resources for "eating the price spikes". Unless you have your own financial resources or massive speculative investment, you cannot also "eat the price spikes" so your own products will have to be priced at realistic levels so that it is something that actually earns you some level of profit in order for your business to continue and grow, and thus those products will be far more expensive than Valve's subsidized product, and thus, you probably won't sell any unless you have some significant further advantage, which you shouldn't *need* to have in order to simply compete with the market leader. That's a clear barrier to entry, and is the definition of anti-competitive.

Usually, this would be done to lock the subsidized buyers into a particular ecosystem, or even just to bundle that ecosystem by default (aka illegal bundling, like Microsoft did for years) from which additional profit can later be expected. In Valve's case, this would be Steam, and it pretty clearly would profit them in the long run, and this strategy also keeping all competitors out by dumping hardware below cost, thus abusing their Steam distribution monopoly to fund a second monopoly on the Steam Machines market to maintain their first monopoly. That's literally what antitrust laws were designed for. Just because we don't really effectively enforce them anymore I feel like people have started losing sight of what they mean and what they are supposed to be for and I don't think we should just normalize that this is how businesses are supposed to operate.

And that's why Valve probably won't do that. (at least I suspect they won't, based on my view of their history, I have no insider knowledge)

Whether it's true or not, I've heard a lot of people complaining about the possibility of a price point like this and it really blows my mind how twisted people's expectations are about these price points. Like people line up overnight for a chance to buy iPhones, the same as the one already in their pocket but with a new function in the camera app or something, and then you get something that is almost an entirely new class of product and far more capable for the same price at a time when we're facing unprecedented shortages, and people are pissed off about it? Double standards much?

I wish it was $200 too, but like, we don't live in that world anymore. I'm sorry, but that world died from Covid and any medicine that could've cured it was lost in trade wars and its corpse was blown up in real wars. It's not coming back.

Yes. DP is the right choice for civilized people.

All the greatest rockets in history have been made by Nazis, Elon is no exception.