For budget graphics cards enthusiasts the good times are past and gone

Yes, it's this time of the cryptocurrencies cycles again. New graphics cards are out of stock everywhere, used prices are up by 100%. In addition to that manufacturers are facing issues with supply chains, and if that wasn't enough the new 8-nanometers technological process is not as efficient as expected.

All media have already covered it, the Bitcoin bubble will bust, production will catch up with the demand thanks to loosening virus-related restrictions on factories, and new graphics cards will probably be back in stock in the 2nd quarter of 2021. Life will get back to normal.

Or will it? So let's imagine for a moment - it's mid-2021, all prices are on the same levels as in early 2020, which budget graphics card will you choose? (let's say for about 100€)
The answer is probably RX470/RX 570 (or for hardcore Nvidia fans somewhat slower GTX 1050 Ti). Okay, that's decent value for money, but what if you want something slightly more modern? After all - those cards will be 5 years old in mid-2021. Your options are: non-existent.

There were no entry-level graphics cards released within the last 5 years.
So maybe Nvidia and AMD just keep manufacturing the cards from previous generations and the high end of today will become the mainstream of tomorrow? Every Apple fan knows that the budget iPhones do exist - you simply buy the old model. And Apple keeps manufacturing models as old as iPhone X from 2017.
Unfortunately, even the latest "budget" cards - RX 5500XT and GTX 1650 Super (although priced at 150€ rather than 100€) are no longer manufactured.

To make things even worse - those discontinued budget cards may not even get successors - Nvidia announced that all of their new cards will be part of the RTX lineup. So sure, we may get something cheaper. Probably RTX 3050 priced even lower than RTX 2060 Super. But the recommended retail price for the RTX 2060 Super is 400€!
AMD did not reveal what will be the cheapest card in RX 6000 lineup, but I don't think there will be any. AMD offers decent APUs (processors with integrated graphics cards). So whatever they would release for 100€, it could cannibalize on sales of their 100€ APUs.

Speaking of AMD offerings - those Ryzens with integrated Vega graphics were great value back in 2017. However, since then instead of getting better, they actually have gotten worse! (especially in laptops - they include weaker graphics on the same tier of processors - for example, Vega 6 instead of Vega 8 on basic Ryzen 5 processors). The future looks grim.

But before mankind faces a never-ending war with hostile aliens in the coming millennia, the 3rd decade of the 21st century is probably going to be a bad time for gamers with a tight budget who want to build computers from new components.

The used market is obviously not going anywhere. And on the used market indeed the high end of today is the mainstream of tomorrow. But I am quite sure that the prices won't be quite as attractive as they would be, should there be alternatives amongst new components.