Last I checked AWS still sells EC2 instances using 2018 era GPUs. Most people underestimate just how much long tail demand there is and how long these cards last, despite the higher power consumption.

Yes, but if data center space gets tight, it creates an incentive to replace old inefficient models with better ones, i.e. sqeueeze more performance out of limited data center space.

IIRC some companies were running campaigns like "we buy your old hardware so you won't sell it in aftermarket and crash the prices". It all ends in landfill.

I wouldn't be surprised if RAM cartel or nvidia will attempt something like that, plus nvidia already talks about license-locking GPUs.

Also, again, IIRC, IBM hardware already works this way. There are almost no aftermarket when I last checked for them because it's all locked up and useless.

Maybe, but A100s and H100s were air cooled. Space is just part of the problem.