[Acquisition40]

Why do we assume that this is a "bubble"?

If we look at the more recent timeline, of say, the past 100-200 years, there still has been population, economic growth, inflation, etc., inclusive of momentary economic downturns. Looking at a longer timeline of 1000 years or more, same deal. The world survived the Black Plague.

The .com bust was there, but eventually tech prevailed and still does with much intention and hope for improved communication, logistics, AI, etc. Medicine is arguably still in its early stages, as can be debated for the rest of science and many aspects of humanity.

Watch sales, in both absolute and relative scales, have been climbing compared to 10, 25, 50 years ago. And for "bubble"-pieces, there's definitely more people than can afford these watches than not (supply/demand as case and point). Economically speaking, it's more so "do they want it?" as opposed to "do they need it?"

Don't we define economic bubbles as situations in which people/institutions have artificially overreached and exploited market conditions for some sort of economic gains at an unsustainable rate?

However, if it's sustainable, then we just call it strong economic growth, right? When the supplying power and buying power are both legitimate and strong.

So isn't it also safe to assume that this is a great growth spurt that may slow, but it could never "crash" to a point where it'll actually negatively affect the watch-collecting base. And emphasizing "watch-collecting base" because grey-dealers that stock up on inventory or perhaps companies like AP that re-strategize to condense their distribution network actually may be economically affected.

The term "hype" or "very, very, crazy popular" sounds more fitting, but I don't see who is exploiting the system to create an artificial demand. When people want something because of pop culture or a fad, that's still legitimate demand, though it may not be ever-lasting (but nothing is really ever-lasting, anyways). If (and a big "if") PP or AP is squeezing supply purposely to create this hype, then they're also not making money when they can, since they're not getting any of the benefit from grey-market trading margins. Maybe they get marketing benefits, but no financial gains, which every economic bubble situation exploits.

If prices of these desirable watches come down to MSRP or even to previous points where they were discounted a bit, is that a "bubble burst"? Or does that just apply to speculators? Maybe the rest of the watch community calls it "the fad just moved on" or "strong growth/demand period is over".

Just asking if there's more to this because it seems like the term "bubble" is used when people think things are overvalued and trading as such in the collective marketplace.

But for long-term lovers and collectors, what do we have to lose? Has anyone ever lost money on a time-piece that they held on to for more than 10 years? Do we even care?

S