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notRobot

Just from HN I've learned that so far this year we've had a:

Pasta shortage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25566652

Shipping container shortage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26574077

Chip shortage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27095558

And now a tennis ball shortage...

View on HN

There's a lot more than that going on right now. A whole subreddit dedicated to it[1].

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Shortages/

Doom & gloom is a borderline fetish. Look closer and for most things the shortage is an inconvenience at most.

Hmm, could have potential but it needs some better moderation. It seems to consist mostly of knee-jerk reactions to local stores selling out of a very specific random product and calling it a shortage, or vague statements without any useful details. "HEB is out of Valentina hot sauce" and "Walmart has limits on basic food".

Looks just like a preppers sub.

A few years ago at family meals, for grace I started thanking the industrial supply complex for bringing us all the wonderful food.

I was being more prescient than I could have imagined.

Also bike parts, raw textiles, and tofu!

For the tennis ball problem, I invite everyone to visit my balcony, where my upstairs neighbour's dog leaves all his balls.

There’s a tofu factory in my neighborhood, so no shortage here.

for maybe ~6 weeks, i noticed dramatically reduced tofu supply in stores near me (Vancouver BC), including from local brands. There was usually something... the soft/dessert tofu being most common. Seems to be back to normal the last couple weeks.

Tennis balls are not vital equipment, they are just for fun, so it's not a big deal. Some other shortages are more worrying as they affect more important situations like food supply, work tools, ...

My dog disagrees.

your dog can continue using his old tennis ball over and over again though.

You've clearly not met my dog..

Get him onto old branches.

Oh she loves sticks. The problem is she eats them, which results in her throwing them up all over my carpet an hour or so later.

I don't think modern economies and supply chains work that way. It isn't like the tennis ball supply chain is an independent entity from everything else. It is all connected in somewhat intricate and non-obvious ways.

It isn't particularly surprising to me that we are seeing all sorts of side-effects of the unpresidented shutdown of vast parts of our economy as a response to COVID.

Wasn't there also a sofa shortage, caused in part by a foam shortage?

https://slate.com/business/2021/07/furniture-shortage-couch-...

Obviously, they're after the MyPillow guy.

I can chime in with my own anecdote, I was quoted (back in May) a 28-week delivery timeframe for a couch, much like in that article.

Somewhere, an economist is regretting creating an inflation measure based on a shipping container of pasta, chips, and tennis balls.

I had to wait 2 months to order a Fluke DMM at work.

Also bikes and all sorts of bike parts and accessories.

I went into Decathlon yesterday, and only two bikes were out of stock. Compare to this time last year when there were only two in stock...

Lucky. I went to take delivery of a new bike at a local bike shop last month and it was completely picked over. They had a few models left but easily 80% of their stock was gone. They also had 2 bike mechanics working in a crowded workspace diligently fixing what looked like a sizable backlog of bikes in need of repairs and upgrades. I asked one of the guys working there about the shortage and he also mentioned it’s related to holdup in overseas shipping.

Yeah I heard the same. Because of very low inventory and multi month delivery times, folks are opting to get their old bikes fixed and causing a backlog in the repair shop.

People's experience will vary eidely because the problem is in the supply chains, not production. In most cases, there exists plenty of X, it's getting it from Y to Z that's the problem.

I'll jump onto the dog pile and add air filters for your vehicle. Dealerships are buying them up like toilet paper so you have to call around and ask them very nicely if they'd mind shipping it to you. And during fire season too.

I just picked up mine from Amazon. Random cheap brands but everything was in stock. Rock Auto seemed to have stock as well. Maybe I got lucky.

i had trouble with the engine air filter specifically. might have been a make/model specific thing, but i found one of the last ones in my state according to the dealers inventory system.

Containers are real.

We used to pay $3000 per container.

We are now paying $11,000 per, and can’t get enough of them.

There were also boba shortages earlier this year

Shortages wouldn't be so severe if market prices could reward those who had done work to mitigate the shortage. For example, when cups are in short supply, the person who sells their reserve stock for a healthy profit.

Unfortunately anti-price-gouging laws are being enforced more strictly, which means those who can alleviate a shortage are usually not rewarded. End result is people no longer go to great lengths to come up with ways to alleviate shortages, and the shortages end up worse.

I suspect that gouging-without-countermeasures causes much more damage than anti-gouging, though.

Specifically in case of tennis balls, I would argue that having them expensive is still better than not having them at all - tennis players need to practise.

How long do they last?

Can we possibly change these arbitrary sport regulations making the balls last 100x as much?

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