Well, perhaps, but I don't fully agree with this despite what a pro card goes for, and I'll still put the blame on them for online options being so ridiculous. I don't find it coincidental that the same online sellers show up on fleabay or amazon or newegg stating only 1 or 2 in stock but then have more within days, while you can't find them anywhere else online. Sure, those lucky enough to get to an MC get a manufacturer's price as insane as that might be (and the partners also deserve some blame when jacking a cards price by $600 or more just to add LED or 15 MHz), but online, those prices are 2x to 3x for anything in stock usually. It's bad when a round-trip airline ticket to a store will end up with a total cost comparable to paying a scalper online. I still check regularly, and the few AIB cards that launched close to the NVIDIA MSRP are still going for close to $1k or more, when I see them in stock anywhere.
I do very much agree that NV basically gave a middle finger to the gaming community and its partners, and at this point, is only making consumer GPUs for s***s and giggles while their enterprise options have become the talk of those who never heard of them before the new AI craze. It is also obvious that the fabs have to focus on the bigger profit margins, as do the GPU manufacturers themselves in their orders, but in the end, the PC gaming community is the one who is losing out, when a fraction of the supply is made for an obvious demand. I also agree that the age of discrete GPUs is probably on its way out, maybe a decade or so.
