Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

pcpartpicker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 423 posts

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#131

Post by pmontra »

Aurornis wrote: post #128
neom wrote: post #65

Funny how many dot-com esq things are popping up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

The big news story this cycle is that OpenAI secured two large contracts with two separate DRAM companies at the same time, carefully timing the deals so that neither DRAM company knew about the deal with other. Had either company known about the true demand from OpenAI they would have charged a lot more, but each only saw about half. In other words, there was no collusion between the DRAM manufacturers. They were bo…

And when demand eventually crashes, all the new production capacity is left without buyers to sell to, so maybe it does not even make sense to create it.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#132

Post by tills13 »

Why is it that consumers always get shafted here and we just keep going on like "it's just business"

Why isn't some consumer protection regulator going "actually no, OpenAI, you can't corner the market for the foreseeable future"

Hell, make OpenAI pay for this shit up front. You want to corner the market? Put up the money you don't have.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#133

Post by zozbot234 »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #124
zozbot234 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just surge pricing to manage demand, not "price gouging". Being able to buy RAM at high prices is a lot better than being unable to source it at all because everyone else is panic-hoarding.

It's speculative price gouging. Calling it "surge pricing" doesn't stop erosion of consumer trust in the market. Watch now as more people more readily jump to price fixing conclusions. Not helped by the inevitable further increase in speculation through feedback loops and the resultant volatility. First come first served is a better principle than "surge pricing". A lottery is a better principle than "surge pricing".…

> It's speculative price gouging ... if you monitor market trends, anticipate needs, and act quickly, such as buying RAM ahead of a known upcoming supply crunch, you're rewarded with access at the original price

The word for "monitoring market trends, anticipating needs and acting quickly" is, well, speculation. Why should a retailer not be allowed to speculate and hold more product stock when they anticipate a future crunch? In fact, the whole reason prices have become so volatile right now is that this supply crunch was not properly anticipated.

The reason why retailers are not "price fixing" is that price fixing involves setting an artificial ceiling on total production; retailers are not in a position to do this, and there is no evidence at all that DRAM makers are doing this either.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#134

Post by Aurornis »

nodja wrote: post #93
somenameforme wrote: post #79

I don't understand this. I'm looking at prices on some Asian store fronts and it's nowhere even remotely near these. I'm looking at DDR5-6000 2x16 for about $130, with no apparent limits. Even with tariffs, transport, and other fees, you could get this to the US for way less than $400. I doubt the market could be this inefficient - in other words I don't think I just found a get rich quick scheme. So, what gives?

The current prices are a response to future stock, not current. It's 100% retailers price gouging with their current stock that they got for cheap because they know there will be limited stock in the near future. Asian retailers may be more honest and keep their margins the same, but will catch up in a month or two.

> It's 100% retailers price gouging with their current stock that they got for cheap

The retail price of a product is a function of the market rate at the intersection of supply and demand. The price paid for inventory on the shelf doesn’t matter.

It works both ways. If retailers bought a lot of RAM at high prices and then the market suddenly dropped, they could have to sell it at a loss.

Some people get irrationally angry at this, but you do it too. If you bought a house for $500K and the market went up such that it was worth $700K, you wouldn’t think it was “price gouging” to list it at market rate. You’re just trading an asset for cash at the current price. The price you bought it at is irrelevant to the price you’re going to sell it for.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#135

Post by loeg »

jakebasile wrote: post #84
loeg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just live with the PC you have for two more years. It's probably not a big deal? A moderately capable machine from 5 years ago is still marginally capable.

Hopefully this blows over in a few years and you’re right and I’m just catastrophizing.

One way or another. Either the AI stuff cools off, or the RAM people spin up more fabs.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#136

Post by franga2000 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #95
nodja wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current prices are a response to future stock, not current. It's 100% retailers price gouging with their current stock that they got for cheap because they know there will be limited stock in the near future. Asian retailers may be more honest and keep their margins the same, but will catch up in a month or two.

It's just surge pricing to manage demand, not "price gouging". Being able to buy RAM at high prices is a lot better than being unable to source it at all because everyone else is panic-hoarding.

Is it better? As with all price gouging, better for those who can afford it, sure, but not for those who can't. The proper way to combat scalping is to implement fair allocation methods (for a start purchase quantity limits) and punish people for scalping.

Look at how most places handled war-time gasoline shortages. Rationing coupons, purchase limits, demand leveling (like the odd-even system), price or profit controls, strict prosecution of scalpers and price gougers. And it's not like only the communists did this - even the US had most if not all of these things. And it worked far better than the shit that happened during the pandemic shortages. Governments used to know how to govern.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#137

Post by Aurornis »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #124
zozbot234 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just surge pricing to manage demand, not "price gouging". Being able to buy RAM at high prices is a lot better than being unable to source it at all because everyone else is panic-hoarding.

It's speculative price gouging. Calling it "surge pricing" doesn't stop erosion of consumer trust in the market. Watch now as more people more readily jump to price fixing conclusions. Not helped by the inevitable further increase in speculation through feedback loops and the resultant volatility. First come first served is a better principle than "surge pricing". A lottery is a better principle than "surge pricing".…

> First come first served is a better principle than "surge pricing"

First come first serve must means enterprising individuals would buy as much as they could afford and then immediately relist it on Facebook Marketplace for the actual market rate.

Thinking that retailers could keep RAM prices low and also keep it in stock for you is irrational.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#138

Post by Maxion »

Snoozus wrote: post #121

Maybe it's time we make a simple web page 100KB again? Is there some kind of CDN minification, adblocking and compression service? Maybe even server side rendering of websites? Then a smartphone would work fine with 1GB of RAM and everyone could be happy.

Simple web pages can be made small with modern tooling, e.g. AstroJS.

The problem is that most web pages these days fundamentally are not simple.

Rather than trying to make web pages small, the real effort would be in designing web pages to be simple.

The large majority of software devs, PMs and the like don't really know how to do anything else than a Node + React webapp.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#139

Post by Maxion »

platevoltage wrote: post #120
pprotas wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did European prices have the same increase then?

I'm sure if they didn't keep the prices somewhat similar, you would have a bunch of people in Europe selling RAM to Americans.

Huh? It's not the manufacturers paying the tariffs, its the importer? US tariffs do not affect the margins of the manufacturer.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#140

Post by Maxion »

zahlman wrote: post #41

What specifically happened in June to set this off? It can't just be " waves hands AI/LLMs" because ChatGPT has existed for years.

OpenAI bought up a big chunk of global DRAM production:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/openais-star...

Post reply on HN