The OPEC Game: Forced non obsolescence

Supply and demand are not the only economics forces at work.  The other market mover is disruptive technology and obsolescence. When a new technology comes along to make another technology moot, then it quickly exploits that weakness and takes over when it's allowed to do so.  For example, where can you get typewriter ribbons anymore?  And where did floppy disks go? Everyone has many USB disk drives. I can't find a computer that uses floppy drives.

In W. Brian Arthur's book The Nature of Technology he explains that the economy is never quite at stasis, it is always changing on the time frame of decades not months like glacial movement but still in motion.  And the genesis of new technologies is born out of the arrangements set up today.

Now, back to OPEC.  OPEC has a valuable commodity they can sell so long as competing technologies cannot make enough money to remain solvent - in business long enough - to obsolete oil for good.

So OPEC plays two long games at the same time.  It tries to maximize the value when it can from every barrel of oil. It plays the production game to raise or lower oil value month over month. It keeps member countries happy and fills national coffers.

But every so often it plays the obsolescence game as well.  It increases production in the face of falling demand. Or it holds production steady in spite of falling prices to make oil so cheap it's the only game in town.  With most of the world reliant on oil products, that makes it harder for people to adopt alternative energy means because it is cost-prohibitive to switch.  That captures another group of people to their customer base.