311–320 of 587 posts
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Hello!? Us consumers need it too.
You need 8GB at the very most, which isn't out of reach for any consumer. If you need more, then you are a professional and can afford more. Or you are a hobbyist, and your hobby doesn't deserve any subsidies from the hard working tax payer.
I call total bullshit on that. I need more.
There is no law that states memory must be a consumer product. I truly believe the era of personal computing was a beautiful blip that our masters are beginning to take away from the general public. It could be terminals and time sharing for the foreseeable future through "smart" phones.
500% in a year is just insane. I knew RAM prices were going up, but $3k+ for 128GB of DDR5 makes me wonder how much of this is actually AI demand, and how much is this just manufacturers taking advantage of it. They have done this in the past after all
"Manufacturers taking advantage of it" wouldn't take it to 500% without AI, because it's way beyond the price elasticity points where they make up lost sales at higher prices.
Those prices lose most consumer sales, and are only viable if there's constant high demand that's relatively insensitive to price (so, not regular folks, but e.g. AI companies).
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Would they? Cartels aren't known for massively increasing production to satisfy all demand. Far from it I'd say, they're more likely to expand supply to such a level that they can still reap massive profits. Very few countries/companies have the knowhow and willingness to be able to build more. OPEC is a perfect example of this behaviour. They set hearly production goals to keep prices high. Or the Quebec Maple Syrup…
OPEC's aim isn't to keep prices as high as possible. If they go too high, people will start buying electric cars, investing in renewable energy, etc. Basically they want to make oil as expensive as possible while preventing it from getting so expensive that it's disruptive.
I think we're in agreement here. I don't think memory manufacturers are interested in a market disruption even though profits are incredibly high for a few years. Make it too profitable for too long and others will arise but keep the supply at a steady pace with decent margins and they will remain the only ones on the block because of massive upfront cost.
China is, to my knowledge, the only country that has so far had the willingness to seriously invest. Not necessarily for profits but for independence reasons. I don't see many (or any really) other countries following suit.
500% in a year is just insane. I knew RAM prices were going up, but $3k+ for 128GB of DDR5 makes me wonder how much of this is actually AI demand, and how much is this just manufacturers taking advantage of it. They have done this in the past after all
I don't understand the distinction you are making. If you have a massive excess of demand ready to pay any price, and a limited supply, of course the sellers will take advantage, that's how any market works. They can do that because of the lack of supply. Over the long term demand will rationalise and supply will adjust. But in between there is a squeeze, and the right price is the maximum price buyers are willing to…
The question is how much of this demand is actually based on AI, or just an excuse to fleece regular buyers (and AI is not really the actual demand driving such prices).
Memory manufacturers have driven up prices via collusion many times in the past (and paid fines for it), without AI or some similar high demand vertical market existing.
But I don't think it's the case now, see my answer elsewhere here for why.
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> If you have a massive excess of demand ready to pay any price, and a limited supply, of course the sellers will take advantage, that's how any market work The question is how quickly the supply adjusts. In a free market, the suppliers would respond to the price signal by quickly expanding their production to meet the elevated demand. But a market captured by a cartel will be much slower to expand the supply. So, th…
Memory fab build out times are years not months. The existing ones already run 24/7. If these companies could pull more supply out of thin air they would, but they cannot.
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Generally speaking, if demand stays high, and existing suppliers don't increase supply, the high prices create an incentive and opportunity for new market entrants to increase the supply.
Yes everyone took Econ 101. Now what do you think happens when developing new supply is substantially constrained by lead times? Coz a whole lot less of you have ever dealt with manufacturing logistics.
Some supply and demand curves move in days, some in months, some on years.
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Memory fab build out times are years not months. The existing ones already run 24/7. If these companies could pull more supply out of thin air they would, but they cannot.
Would they? Cartels aren't known for massively increasing production to satisfy all demand. Far from it I'd say, they're more likely to expand supply to such a level that they can still reap massive profits. Very few countries/companies have the knowhow and willingness to be able to build more. OPEC is a perfect example of this behaviour. They set hearly production goals to keep prices high. Or the Quebec Maple Syrup…
Can you just not join the organization?
Maple trees are living things and have a right to reproduce, you can't fault a bird for shitting maple seeds all over my farm planting maple trees everywhere.
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People think that shorting is an easy way of getting rich when you think a stock will go down, but even if you know it will, getting the timing wrong on it is catastrophic as you'll get unbounded loses while the market fails to correct the issues you are betting against
OP is blatantly overconfident on his "prediction", so I called him out. Looks like I struck a nerve with some people.