To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. My preteen son’s laptop had been warning us for months that it was ready to quit forever. The battery had stopped charging properly, the hinge was loose, and, after years of vigorous Minecraft commands, the W key had fallen off. When it finally died on New Year’s Day, West was stricken with panic. His eyes widened as he looked up at me and whispered in horror, “Oh no.” After our schools closed last spring, online gaming became his lifeline, his sole source of peer connection. I tried to convince him it wasn’t so bad: He’d been saving money to build a gaming PC for a year. Now that his laptop had died, I’d help him with the cost. But West was not reassured. He explained that he could buy nearly all the parts for a gaming PC, but we’d have a hard time finding a graphics card he needed to complete it. Covid-19, he told me, had increased demand and led to a shortage. “I’m sure it will be fine,” I said. I assumed that the graphics card shortage would be like the toilet paper shortage we witnessed last March: a fleeting problem that the market would correct. I was totally wrong.