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Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

mooreslawisdead.com

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Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#171

Post by theendisney »

bigwheels wrote: post #99
theendisney wrote: post #94

Why would one sell something cheaper than the current market value? I wouldnt care if i had stock or not, prices should be what things cost.

When someone buys up all the supply, the price will rise because of supply and demand. It's the nature of markets. TFA mentions that if Samsung and SK Hynix had known what shenanigans were underway, they would have pursued better pricing terms.

I mean, say you have something in stock that others sell for twice as much as last week and it will cost you twice as much to restock, why would you sell it for last weeks prices?

Why would it matter if you have anything in stock or not? What does it matter what you've paid for it?

If it will be hard to restock and ill most likely will have to sell "no" ill be even more motivated to ask more for it.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#172

Post by UltraSane »

marcosdumay wrote: post #137
swatcoder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was not the "free and global market" I thought we were supposed to have at this point. Perhaps you haven't noticed but the pendulum has been swinging the other way for a while already and has a lot of momentum behind it. It's mentioned off-hand because the ongoing return to a multi-polar global order is covered elsewhere already, across dozens of articles every day.

> has a lot of momentum behind it Does it? It's mostly the US pushing against globalism right now. Trump managed to unite almost the entire world.

"It's mostly the US pushing against globalism right now."

This is completely wrong. China and Russia are very much working against it.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#173

Post by overfeed »

shkkmo wrote: post #119
roenxi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in producers not over-producing RAM should be illegal? A presumably short-term price spike in RAM of all things is a non-issue. It is a luxury good that only a very small number of people care about and there is no reason to think this blip is going to last. Apple did stuff like this all the time at their high point in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and it would happen often in other markets. The world is not sta…

> A presumably short-term price spike in RAM of all things is a non-issue. It is a luxury good that only a very small number of people care about Um... What? Pretty much every adult owns one or more items with DRAM chips in them and depends on businesses that use even more. The supply crunch will effect a surprising spread of the economy given how ubiquitous computers are now. Looking at delivery dates, the dram pric…

> The supply crunch will effect a surprising spread of the economy given how ubiquitous computers are now.

If the OpenAI-induced supply crunch causes the AI bubble to burst, I may drop dead from irony-poisoning.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#174

Post by potamic »

pixelpoet wrote: post #101

I like how one of the reference links betrays how the article itself was researched, possibly written; HN hides the end of the url, which is "utm_source=chatgpt.com": > https://www.economist.com/business/2025/11/19/cracks-are-app... You have to appreciate the irony :)

Would it be as ironic if one wrote an article about Google and used Google search to research their sources?

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#175

Post by [deleted] »

jpgvm wrote: post #133
rootusrootus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buying a car for $60k when other countries, whom you are also competing with, get buy similar cars for $10-20k from China I'd love to hear your examples of this happening. For $22K you can get a BYD Dolphin Surf in Europe. And that's a pretty small car. What are you paying $60K for in the US that's the same size? Maybe let's try a different match up. The BYD Atto 3 seems to start around 40K in Europe. It's smaller…

Atto 3 is $19.3k USD in Thailand. So it's really just tariffs and taxes making it that expensive elsewhere.

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#176

Post by UltraSane »

behnamoh wrote: post #149
am17an wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad for consumers period. A deal that hampers 40% of global supply shouldn't be a thing, it's predatory. I know DRAM is not a necessity, but considering that PCs are going to be affected means this affects real things like schools and hospitals. There's being smart while making a deal and there's knee-capping the market with your leveraged to the tits business

but where do we draw the line? Would 39% be okay? and who's gonna draw the line and enforce it?

Do they actually have the cash to buy all of this RAM? If not then it should be very illegal.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#177

Post by [deleted] »

roenxi wrote: post #68
mlsu wrote: post #11

Moves like this should be illegal. It's becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI is going to get lapped by Google on technical merits. So this is the "code red" solution? Supply shenanigans? They are getting beat in the developer market by Anthropic. And getting beat on fundamental tech by Google. This is a company whose ostensible mission is to "benefit all of humanity" ...

As in producers not over-producing RAM should be illegal? A presumably short-term price spike in RAM of all things is a non-issue. It is a luxury good that only a very small number of people care about and there is no reason to think this blip is going to last. Apple did stuff like this all the time at their high point in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and it would happen often in other markets. The world is not sta…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#178

Post by Libidinalecon »

mlsu wrote: post #11

Moves like this should be illegal. It's becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI is going to get lapped by Google on technical merits. So this is the "code red" solution? Supply shenanigans? They are getting beat in the developer market by Anthropic. And getting beat on fundamental tech by Google. This is a company whose ostensible mission is to "benefit all of humanity" ...

This is a desperate move by a company that is in huge trouble.

I paid almost every month since gpt4 came out but mine lapsed when Gemini was released and I haven't even thought of logging in.

The subscribers are exactly the users who would migrate to Gemini. Then your left with the prospect of this giant free chatgpt user base setting money fire.

Wouldn't be shocking at all looking back 10 years from now that maybe the path that Altman stays fired would have been the better path.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#179

Post by astral_drama »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #66
loeg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Moves like this should be illegal. Should be, as in, new legislation should criminalize it? What's the generalized principle? Or should be, as in existing law should cover it? And if so, what law / how?

It wouldn't shock me if this is actually just market manipulation. OpenAI in the past year seems to be operating more and more like a pump and dump machine. Their recent AMD deal seems to have been AMD giving them a bunch of stock for free in exchange for them announcing that they would use AMD GPUs for training, and OpenAI doesn't have any fab equipment so the only thing they can do with 40% of the global dram suppl…

It's market manipulation. You get a chase going (panic buying) by those that are short (need to buy memory in the future). Run up the price on those shorts and squeeze them out as they chase price higher, meanwhile you bought in low and can distribute out your supply when you see fit, or run it up higher until everyone is wrecked. If I were the memory makers I wouldn't want to cede control to openai, you'd rather have a healthy, steady ecosystem than a rigged market that people don't want to be involved in.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#180

Post by themafia »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #108
willis936 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read "US Justice Department" the same way I read "Britain's Ministry of Truth".

When I hear about this US justice department, I hear the mafia enforcement.

It has been since forever. There was a reason J. Edgar Hoover denied the existence of organized crime for decades.
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