this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
266 points (97.5% liked)
PC Gaming
14899 readers
545 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I really don't like the idea that consumers can be as retarded as they want, at the end of the day, someone else is responsible. I'm a big fan of also hold consumers accountable.
Many consumers are irresponsible with their purchases. The best example in this regard is apple. They kept pulling anti-consumer moves, removable batteries - gone, headphone jack - gone, etc. People just kept buying it like mindless drones. That is not a "big business decision" - it's a "many consumers will eat any slop that is served to them".
If consumers were more responsible with their purchase decisions, companies would have no choice but to change course. And that even worked for a fairly long time. But the broad population has become complacent and straightup stupid as it seems, which in turn requires regulation. But if the population wasn't this dumb, we wouldn't even need regulation. The market would - and this is not a meme - literally regulate itself because consumers would STOP giving you money, and that's the ONE thing that will change a companies course.
To be fair tho - in this situation it wouldn't do anything. The AI-Bubble is a self-sustaining structure that will deflate over time, with or without consumer usage/input. But in general, I think moist consumers are lazy and complacent, which lets many companies run rampant.
Its interesting I didn't see any nuance in the initial response.
But yes I don't disagree consumers shoot themselves in the foot constantly for various reasons, mostly ignorance.
Brand loyalty, ~~propaganda~~ marketing, etc etc
The problem with your latter half is things like... Effective monopolies on required goods, small businesses going down because a Walmart opened up then jacked up prices, cable companies agreeing to not compete in geographical areas, regulatory capture in various industries, etc etc.
It's not as easy as "market self corrects"
These are things that are mostly a non-issue in europe, so idk. Food and water are regulated, so is internet access to even mobile network access, and I heard about the walmart story, that was something that walmart even tried in germany like 20 years ago to force other discounters to fold, but got slapped by the "kartellamt" (basically a government antitrust body) so bad it had to stop.
So yes, I agree that on important goods, especially the goods that people have no real choice in buying because they need them, like food, water, medicine, housing etc, you need regulation. But many problems in our modern world aren't because of these sectors. They happen because people keep using big tech companies instead of thinking about alternatives that might make your life a bit less comfortable in the short term, but will profit you long term.
America does suck
My "initial response" was basically a meme, fuck you.
Lmao such insights
Was it really a meme? I am responding like that (but without the "fuck you") very seriously, lol. Because this is true. Anyone supporting the Ai companies are responsible for the RAM+SSD shortage as well, and all the other issues we have thanks to Ai.