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The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

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Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#501

Post by NathanielK »

aurareturn wrote: post #47
cherioo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe author is writing this from an Intel Mac!

Quite possible. He did say his “powerful” MacBook Pro CPU is faster than his iPhone. I’m pretty sure even an iPhone 11 chip is more powerful than a 2019 MacBook Pro CPU in ST. An iPhone 15 is more powerful than the fastest 2019 MacBook Pro Intel CPU in MT. I suppose he can be using a 2019 MacBook Pro or older and an iPhone 14 or older and compares only MT speeds.

Powerfulness is measured in watts, it's why I keep my almost 400W 980ti around. :)

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#502

Post by hackyhacky »

WalterBright wrote: post #491
hackyhacky wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment does not address the (imho reasonable) criticism that the described system incentivizes gambling as the key to wealth, rather than labor. There are many problems with a gambling based economy, not least among them that over a long enough time line, all the money ends in very few hands.

> a long enough time line, all the money ends in very few hands. You're assuming the economy is zero sum, which it obviously is not.

> You're assuming the economy is zero sum, which it obviously is not.

That assumption does not follow from my statement.

What I do assume is that the easiest way to make money is to have money, which means that the rich and get richer and the poor get poorer. We've already seen that the rise of billionaires correlatives with an increase in wealth inequality and poverty.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#503

Post by WalterBright »

hackyhacky wrote: post #360
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should society care about people making profits? The people making profits are the ones providing food, shelter, and phones to you.

> The people making profits are the ones providing food, shelter, and phones to you. I'm not worried about the guy making my sandwich at the corner deli. He's entitled to my money because he provides a valuable service. I am worried about the owner of FoodCo, who plays golf all day while his employees run the company. He provides literally no service to anyone at all, but makes more money than any employee. He then u…

Name one CEO of a large company who fits your profile.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#504

Post by mrandish »

m4x wrote: post #269
sokoloff wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world would 256GB of RAM be “entry level”?

A world where Apple has invested in their own fabs, so they can sell devices with drastically more RAM than their competition at entry-level prices.

The point of my GP post was that due to being one of the world's biggest and longest-term buyers, Apple is already paying very close to actual manufacturing costs + amortized capex because RAM is an undifferentiated commodity. Owning the factory themselves doesn't reduce the actual manufacturing cost + amortized capex that Apple would have to pay their own factory. Apple is already buying RAM at the lowest possible margins. It's similar math to deciding whether to spend your own cash or get a loan. If the loan's interest rate is low enough, it's better take the loan and put your cash to work where it can return a higher margin. And at the incredibly low margins Apple pays for RAM, keeping that cash in long-term investments will actually earn more money than putting it into building RAM factories.

If Apple could go back in time 3.5 years and decide to build their own factory, that would put them in a great position today. But deciding to do it now won't increase their supply 3.5 years from now more than just increasing their long-term orders with existing suppliers. Those suppliers will start building new factories based on Apple's increased orders and they'll do it faster and cheaper than Apple can because they don't have to build some factories in the U.S. for political reasons or worry as much about environmental regulation, permitting and ensuring Apple employees in Penang get benefits similar to employees in Cupertino.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#505

Post by WalterBright »

hackyhacky wrote: post #394
Aerroon wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't a small village have a supermarket? If it's small enough then it won't have any store at all. Why? Because the business doesn't make enough money to justify it and the consequence of this is that none of the inhabitants of that village can "just go to the store to buy some milk". They either need to plan weeks or months worth of shopping in advance or have access to transport that can take them to a town…

Your argument amounts to billionaire apologism and has nothing to do with my comment. If a supermarket cannot be profitable in a small village, an investor isn't going to change that. The investor will invest in businesses that can be profitable. > Your deli guy wouldn't have a job if the FoodCo guy hadn't done what he did. People have had jobs since before civilization, and certainly before massive accumulation of w…

In capitalist countries, accumulation of wealth comes alongside the prosperity of the rest of the country.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#506

Post by realusername »

WarmWash wrote: post #462
d3rockk wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except the "profit that is mathematically impossible" part. That's just made up and false. It's entirely possible that we are actually underestimating demand, and there is going to be tons of profit. JP Morgan says $650 billion in annual revenue required to deliver mere 10% return on AI buildout is equivalent to $35 payment from every iPhone user, or $180 from every Netflix subscriber 'in perpetuity.' Very, very, ve…

Altman said months ago that they are expecting around $65/user/month from ad-supported ChatGPT. A strong hint about where they see account prices in the future. When you run the numbers, $65/mo turns AI investment into a a 5-7 ROI, which is totally within normal bounds. Considering there are over a billion unique weekly active users for the major labs, and demand has been relentless, it's a pretty easy sell to get in…

There's never going to be 65$/user/month, they already struggle to move past 5% of paying users with the current pricing.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#507

Post by nerdsniper »

landl0rd wrote: post #352
officialchicken wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, except no DRAM maker is taking this as a signal to go deep... Incorrect. CXMT is taking this as a signal to open new fabs, create new products, develop new silicon manufacturing techniques, and enter the consumer market worldwide (except USA).

CXMT is a company with heavy state backing and control that started its current trajectory years and years ago. It has infinity money and isn’t allowed to go bankrupt. CXMT is reading political signals (Beijing wants indigenous AI up and down the vertical) as much as market.

> CXMT is a company with heavy state backing and control that started its current trajectory years and years ago. It has infinity money and isn’t allowed to go bankrupt.

This also describes the U.S.A. steel industry. "Heavy state backing" and "not allowed to go bankrupt" often result in particularly terribly-performing industries. If anything, it's notable that China seems to buck that particular trend.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#508

Post by hackyhacky »

WalterBright wrote: post #492
hackyhacky wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can win" is not a refutation of the claim that investment is gambling in any way that matters. The more relevant question is: does investment reward productivity (i.e. skill, strength, labor) or does it reward ownership (i.e. those who have capital will continue to accumulate capital)? By your own statement, it seems the latter. All of that money that you've "earned" with investment, where do you think it came fro…

> All of that money that you've "earned" with investment, where do you think it came from? It was created by the company you invested in. > What do you think you've done to deserve it? I took the risk of providing capital for the company to use to create wealth. Risk is an elemental characteristic of free markets.

> It was created by the company you invested in.

That's right: the value was created by other people, but yet you are benefiting. That makes you a parasite.

> I took the risk of providing capital for the company to use to create wealth.

So what? I can take a risk by jumping into a shallow pool. That's not the same as labor and does not entitle me, ethically, to profit. The profit should go to the people who do the work.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#509

Post by kartoffelsaft »

WarmWash wrote: post #462
d3rockk wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except the "profit that is mathematically impossible" part. That's just made up and false. It's entirely possible that we are actually underestimating demand, and there is going to be tons of profit. JP Morgan says $650 billion in annual revenue required to deliver mere 10% return on AI buildout is equivalent to $35 payment from every iPhone user, or $180 from every Netflix subscriber 'in perpetuity.' Very, very, ve…

Altman said months ago that they are expecting around $65/user/month from ad-supported ChatGPT. A strong hint about where they see account prices in the future. When you run the numbers, $65/mo turns AI investment into a a 5-7 ROI, which is totally within normal bounds. Considering there are over a billion unique weekly active users for the major labs, and demand has been relentless, it's a pretty easy sell to get in…

Those numbers sound... unrealistic to me. Just doing some napkin math: 65 $/user/month / 0.01 $/ad ~= 6500 ads/user/month, which is about an ad per minute if you assume someone is using the chat interface 4 hours a day including weekends. Maybe you see that behavior from "my GF/BF is AI" types but I'm also already assuming 0.01 $/ad which is super high to my understanding (if you work in adtech please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't forsee over 50% of your workday or leisure time spent in ChatGPT as likely, especially if the ad rate is well beyond YouTube's nigh-unusable amount it is now.

Re: The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics

#510

Post by realusername »

Jyaif wrote: post #445
d3rockk wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except the "profit that is mathematically impossible" part. That's just made up and false. It's entirely possible that we are actually underestimating demand, and there is going to be tons of profit. JP Morgan says $650 billion in annual revenue required to deliver mere 10% return on AI buildout is equivalent to $35 payment from every iPhone user, or $180 from every Netflix subscriber 'in perpetuity.' Very, very, ve…

it could replace a bunch of $100k+/year workers.

Well, even these AI companies cannot manage to replace these workers themselves.
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