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Intel X25-M G2 (Un)Availability

pprior said:
Only with those who don't like free market economics :rolleyes:

Keep prices low and have no product to sell, or raise prices until the supply opens up and more product available... that's a basic issue of suppy and demand.

Just wait a few weeks - prices will normalize. If anyone is to blame, intel is the real bad guy here, not newegg. Afterall wasn't this just a "firmware" update that was supposedly holding up the release?
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I figured it was only a matter of time before the "free market economists" showed up. I don't think anyone here disputes that it's the profit-maximizing strategy. What we're pissed off about is that it's a clear case of gouging. Whether or not it makes business sense is debatable (does making a couple thousand dollars on a scarce but popular item outweigh the loss of consumer confidence and dedication?), but for me at least, Newegg's image as a consumer-friendly company has just taken a major hit. (Perhaps I had an overly-rosy image of the company before this happened, but I suppose that's irrelevant at this point.)
 
desenso said:
I figured it was only a matter of time before the "free market economists" showed up. I don't think anyone here disputes that it's the profit-maximizing strategy. What we're pissed off about is that it's a clear case of gouging. Whether or not it makes business sense is debatable (does making a couple thousand dollars on a scarce but popular item outweigh the loss of consumer confidence and dedication?), but for me at least, Newegg's image as a consumer-friendly company has just taken a major hit. (Perhaps I had an overly-rosy image of the company before this happened, but I suppose that's irrelevant at this point.)
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Well first of all, I don't agree with the pejorative use of the term "gouging." What you are seeing is a free market maximizing the use of limited resources available. We're getting way off topic here, but those of us who don't support government babysitting the economy happen to believe that very high prices on certain items help to direct the efficiency of the market to correct supply deficiencies. I.e. - hurricane comes through and the law limits the price on generators. Thus when they sell out, no real profit motive to make extra effort to get more there. If the market would allow prices to adjust upward, then we would have industrious folks packing up trucks of generators and moving south to supply that demand. Then more people would end up with them, instead of fewer people at lower prices.

We're seeing the same thing happen here.

I happen to agree with you that newegg probably made a mistake in public relations (which is part of the equation certainly!) and long term have probably lost some trust in people who normally just go there and buy what they want without too much shopping around because they trust the price will be low.

What I object to is the labeling of such practices as "evil." There is a measurable appalling lack of understanding of market principles in the youth of today (many of whom can't name a supreme court justice or point out India on a map, but can tell you who Paris Hilton is dating....), and such comments show similar lack of insight.
 
pprior said:
Well first of all, I don't agree with the pejorative use of the term "gouging." . . . What I object to is the labeling of such practices as "evil." There is a measurable appalling lack of understanding of market principles in the youth of today (many of whom can't name a supreme court justice or point out India on a map, but can tell you who Paris Hilton is dating....), and such comments show similar lack of insight.
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Don't get ahead of yourself. We can debate whether I used the term "gouging" properly -- that is, whether it should ever be used to describe situations other than the marking up of staples during times of emergency. But even if you object to such use, I think we can all agree that no one would have been confused here, and that it serves to illustrate the point that I'm trying to make.

In any event, I think Newegg is far more culpable than your argument suggests. I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that in order for the market to have the effect that you describe, it has to be relatively efficient. That's obviously not the case here. Newegg's pricing was only feasible because it was able to take advantage of a temporary monopoly that it appeared to hold on very limited stock of the drives. It's absurd to argue that the market could have any effect here -- competing etailers evidently have no recourse at the moment, even though I'm sure that they would desperately love to compete. Given these circumstances, I think a pejorative is completely deserved.
 
pprior said:
Well first of all, I don't agree with the pejorative use of the term "gouging." What you are seeing is a free market maximizing the use of limited resources available.
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There's no need for lengthy explanations: They are taking advantage of you and it's up to you how you respond to it. I, for one, don't like it, and won't buy from Newegg anymore - it's as simple as that.

Newegg isn't ebay, they're not in the business of selling to the highest bidder, and temporary gouging is not something a reputable company should do, ever.

Apple has supply problems with the iPhone, Nintendo had supply problems with the Wii for a long time, but did you see these companies try to make a quick buck off of that? No. Because these are good companies that know that long term customer satisfaction will yield them more profits than gouging ever could. They leave the making of a quick buck to opportunistic ebay traders, and that's how it should be.

You can come up with all manner of excuses for Newegg's behavior but the bottom line is, it's gouging, it's their good right, and it's my good right to not like it, and to punish Newegg by moving my business to other online traders. And yes I have bought from Newegg in the past, so I am not just saying that. You see, trading is not only about supply and demand, it's also about trust and about a merchant-customer relationship.
 
Absolutely agree with you on that last comment. There are a lot of reasons why we choose the vendors we choose. "trusting" that they will have consistently low prices is one of them.

I for example do a LOT of buying from Amazon under the prime program. It's easy, things get here quickly, and it makes my life easy. I know in most cases the prices are competitive, but not always the absolute lowest. It's worth it to me.

The argument was never that you should continue to blindly use newegg (or any other vendor), but rather that people (largely in the macbook forum) were making statements about marking up an item as being inherently wrong in a metaphysical sense, i.e. "evil." It may well be largely overwhelmed by negative publicity and bad customer experience, but that's a business decision.

Desenso - I appreciate greatly your last response, those kinds of thoughtful arguments are a rarity. I would say the despiration to compete is what will drive supply forward, as will other vendors (remember intel is not the only supplier of SSD) seeing what the market will truly bear for a high performance, reliable item. Remember markets are never 100% efficient and they also have delay in adapting to demand.

Anyway, we're so far off course I apologize for throwing in so much blabble on economics. It's just been on my mind recently due to all the major intrusions into the market will all the ridiculous bailouts and government meddling. But that's a whole 'nother topic and one best left out of this thread :eek:

I'm signing off with regards to the pricing argument, but look forward to seeing these getting into stock soon at "normal" prices as I'm going to get a couple for myself I think.

Best regards.
 
I have to agree with all of you on different levels.
On an emotional level, I think what newegg did stinks.
On a sensible level, it's perfectly okay for them and the free-market. I understand, with pprior's help, that they don't deserve any real mud slung at them. But if one doesn't dig them anymore, then good going on voting with your dollars. If only people wouldn't vote for such awful films sometimes.
 
Harrelson said:
WHAAAT?

They charge that for the 80GB while Intel's RRP is $200?

Intel should cut these THIEVES out of the equation and ship the drives directly to customers for $200 and $400 for the 160GB
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It's on Amazon for $250. Not sure why people are paying Newegg's prices.
 
J,
Use APOBox.com. That's how I get stuff to my APO addy in Japan. To date, I've yet to have problem with them.
 
Any ideas where to get this SSD either 80GB or 160Gb in Canada for regular pricing 249$ and 449$ respectively. Newegg has its prices at 369$ CAD for the 80GB and 679$ CAD for the 160GB version. WTF??? I'm really getting impatient on waiting for those prices to drop. Are there any other reliable stores that ship to canada?:confused:
 
MacProCpo said:
J,
Use APOBox.com. That's how I get stuff to my APO addy in Japan. To date, I've yet to have problem with them.
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MPCPO, I'm familiar with APO Box but I really don't like paying the extra shipping cost if I can avoid it...

It just torks me that so many companies shun the US military market overseas with their shipping costs/practices :mad:
 
Ordered the retail version from Amazon on Friday last - $240. Cheaper than the OEM version - from a third party vendor - as it did not have shipping or sales tax added. Delivery scheduled for 9/23. Now whether it actually shows up ...

Oddly, the price is back up again on Amazon to well over $300.

More evidence that patience is a virtue.
 
I'm waiting for the 160GB to be about $450 US, and I'm waiting for the 320GB that I've seen around (never in stock), to become available :O

Kind Regards
 
MythicFrost said:
I'm waiting for the 160GB to be about $450 US, and I'm waiting for the 320GB that I've seen around (never in stock), to become available :O

Kind Regards
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The 320GB has been discussed on the Intel roadmap but I don't think it's scheduled to be released until 2010, so it may be a long wait.
 
MythicFrost said:
Really, argh, I have 180GB of space, I need to fit it on a 160GB SSD :O
How does that work :/
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Move some stuff to another drive?

I broke down and ordered an 80GB G2R5 from one of Amazon's 3rd-party vendors when it dipped under $250 today. We'll see how it goes.
 
Yeah, I've calculated space many times, I've got roughly 80GB in Virtual Machines (when running).

That's half the solid state drive, I've got about 12GB of applications, and probably 50GB of FCS stuff.

I don't know what to do :O
 
MythicFrost said:
Yeah, I've calculated space many times, I've got roughly 80GB in Virtual Machines (when running).

That's half the solid state drive, I've got about 12GB of applications, and probably 50GB of FCS stuff.

I don't know what to do :O
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Do you spend all day in the virtual drives? Run them off of a separate hard drive until capacities increase?
 
I think I will install the additional data and stuff for FCS onto an external hard drive, you can do that right? It's like 40-50GB worth.
And possibly put Vista onto a hard drive and leave my main VM on the SSD.

Kind Regards
 
If you have a mac pro you can just drop another HD in one of the 4 (?) available slots.

You can then move the large data and the vms to the other drive and leave the ssd for the system and as much work stuff as you can. That's what I will do.

If you want to keep the appearance of a single large drive you can use aliases or symlinks to reference the stuff on the HD.
 
Thanks. Bought one from them. Couldn't take it anymore. Would like 320gb, but maybe end of next year for that.
 
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