The standard definition is "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance from intrinsic values".
"The valuations are high, and they'll probably fall in the future" implies (by the way I construe it) "considerably at variance from intrinsic values". It would be hard to argue that there is not high-volume trade in the tech industry.
Individual prices rising and falling due to changes in intrinsic value, for example, due to information about new competing technologies that could not have been anticipated before, or unanticipated information about things much of the tech industry is dependent on, like energy prices, can change the intrinsic valuations.
But prices rising above the intrinsic value because of high investor confidence and investment dollars from one company cycling around the industry and buoying up the existing players is a bubble. It might not be as big a bubble as the last bubble, but it is still a bubble.
You choose one of several definitions you find on the web and call it the "standard definition," as if that made it a sort of axiom. Then you interpret its vague "considerably" as synonymous with "at all." But then you're one step away from your own reductio ad absurdum, because you can now prove that any random (upward) price fluctuation is a bubble, and that is just not how people use the word. Stock prices rise and fall with investor confidence, but not every rise is a bubble. The term "bubble" is reserved for really extreme cases.
Incidentally, I've found that when the conversation in a forum descends to arguments about the meanings of the words being used, it never rises back up to talking about ideas. So if you don't mind, I'm done with this one.
> The term "bubble" is reserved for really extreme cases.
Maybe so, but it doesn't tend to get tossed around until cases start to get extreme. There are a lot of rumblings that there's a bubble building here. Can you think of any examples in recent history when the rumblings of a bubble turned out to be hogwash?
That said, recent history also suggest that the rumblings of bubbliciousness tend to precede the ultimate burst by a good couple of years and the lead up to the burst has been where the most frantic run up takes place, so when bubble rumblings start, that might actually be the best time to get into a market... :-)
In this case, I don't think talking about definition is inevitably useless.
Defining could be determining characteristics of a bubble and figuring out how to recognize one. It's consequences (bursting) are, I think, not under dispute.
Inflation is usually driven by money supply. Print more money or expand supply some other way and you get some inflation.
Hyperinflation is driven by hyperinflation. That is, prices are rising so fast, that they are forced even higher. People rush to buy goods, commodities to get rid of rapidly devaluing money as fast as possible. This drives up prices. Governments need to print more all the time because what they printed last month isn't enough this month.
Financial bubbles are similar and different to overpricing in a similar way. They drive themselves.
"The valuations are high, and they'll probably fall in the future" implies (by the way I construe it) "considerably at variance from intrinsic values."
At least for Angel rounds and series A, IMHO the valuations are finally where they should be. I agree that they will probably go down, but not because they are intrinsically overvalued; rather, I think the investors will eventually just come up with new ways to tip the balance of power back toward themselves.
There definitely are a bunch of intrinsically overvalued startups that are raising a few hundred thousand bucks in angel rounds, but I suspect that we'll just see a gradual return toward using metrics when investing rather than some huge collapse.
The standard definition is "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance from intrinsic values".
"The valuations are high, and they'll probably fall in the future" implies (by the way I construe it) "considerably at variance from intrinsic values". It would be hard to argue that there is not high-volume trade in the tech industry.
Individual prices rising and falling due to changes in intrinsic value, for example, due to information about new competing technologies that could not have been anticipated before, or unanticipated information about things much of the tech industry is dependent on, like energy prices, can change the intrinsic valuations.
But prices rising above the intrinsic value because of high investor confidence and investment dollars from one company cycling around the industry and buoying up the existing players is a bubble. It might not be as big a bubble as the last bubble, but it is still a bubble.