> a is impossible because of chip shortages

It's nothing specific to recent supply chain disruptions. The problem is that manufacturers have relatively inflexible capacity. Scaling foundry capacity isn't as easy as scaling cloud resources; they can't just decide to produce 10x as much product in a given month. Simultaneously, these are status goods for which consumers place a high premium on having the latest and greatest. Even with perfectly functioning supply chains, the market price for such goods is always going to be high on release and taper off as supply increases.