> Machine learning, rendering, and other massively parallel workloads were plenty to keep gpus advancing.
I think the opposite is true. Now that we have cheap GPU accelerators, the machine learning revolution is taking place. But where does that cheap GPU accelerator come from? Clearly, the more frivolous "gaming demand" was paving the way for machine learning, not the other way around. It's similar for mining.
> All the crypto boom did is create shortages and raise prices.
Rising prices are a signal to the market that production needs to be increased, which lowers prices in the long term. Shortages are short term.
