What comes after the Gold Rush?

A conversation that I don't think happens enough is "what happens after the gold rush?" I think it's widely agreed that the shovel seller usually ends up the happiest, but after the gold rush, they might be in a tight spot.

If an owner expects to sell 50 shovels this quarter because they sold 50 last quarter, but they only sold 2 because the gold rush is under
over, they might lose all the profits buying the next wave of shovels and investing in infrastructure.

In a market where no amount of supply can satisfy the demand, rash decisions become defensible with the business judgement rule, so why not bet big? (this is not legal advice)

despite the massive chip shortage, no one is looking to build more fabs. Tech giants like Microsoft are so desperate for storage that they are sending people across the world to factories to beg for more allocation.

Why is no one making more factories and investing in infrastructure? Because the people selling the shovels got smart. Without a moat or competitive advantage, commodity pricing rules. Newly every business contends with this reality eventually, even a big bad m&a firm struggles with maintaining a moat outside of relationships with buyers.

That is the issue, if relationships are not the moat, your business can go under once someone figures out how to do it cheaper. In a race to the bottom, everyone is a loser but the consumer.

Venezuela is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Despite record oil reserves, it barely produces any oil comparatively since the price of extracting is above the going rate and it produces sour thick oil which is less desirable.