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Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

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71–80 of 209 posts

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#71
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling. Depends if US can demand ASML which uses plenty of US tech inside. In reality even the DRAM and NAND supply chain has plenty of US technologies. And you say Micron are US but they have lots of Fabs in Japan as well since they acquired Elpida.

Everyone is using something from someone, you can even argue that US owes India and Europe huge compensation because pretty much everything US did in the last half century was made using technology or people funded by those people. Johny Ive is British, Almost all the AI stuff is created by Europeans, Israelis, and Canadians - thus funded by their respective taxpayers. The thing about the US losing its grip on the wo…

The collapse of global trade would greatly reduce economic efficiency, output, and investment. It has been coming for while, though greatly accelerated by the orange pdf file. It takes a lot longer to build systems of trust and belief in enforcements of global order than to disrupt them. I suppose we'll move closer to the fear side of the financial/political axis from the greed side.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#72
post #67
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is using something from someone, you can even argue that US owes India and Europe huge compensation because pretty much everything US did in the last half century was made using technology or people funded by those people. Johny Ive is British, Almost all the AI stuff is created by Europeans, Israelis, and Canadians - thus funded by their respective taxpayers. The thing about the US losing its grip on the wo…

If history is any guidelines that would be how World War III starts. There is nothing that stops US from building their own Memory Fabs, or asking / funding Micron building more US Fabs. It will cost a more, but the complexity is certainly no where near replicating TSMC.

US is in a very advantageous position regarding geography and resources but its problem is that its geared towards having access to the whole worlds markets. Apple, Google etc. are all possible because they server billions of people, not just 350M. IMHO US will have serious internal trouble for years, eventually stabilizing and being a nice place again.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#73

Honestly, the knock on effects of this cartel behavior should concern all countries, and be remediated with expediency. From consumer electronics to the data-center, the rising real mfg costs and lack of supply is putting huge pressure on pricing, and may just drive anyone who cant negotiate with these suppliers out of business. Once the dominoes start, I fail to see how things recover in less than 3-5 years, not cou…

How do we know it's cartel behavior, not just free market competition?

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#74
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling. Depends if US can demand ASML which uses plenty of US tech inside. In reality even the DRAM and NAND supply chain has plenty of US technologies. And you say Micron are US but they have lots of Fabs in Japan as well since they acquired Elpida.

Everyone is using something from someone, you can even argue that US owes India and Europe huge compensation because pretty much everything US did in the last half century was made using technology or people funded by those people. Johny Ive is British, Almost all the AI stuff is created by Europeans, Israelis, and Canadians - thus funded by their respective taxpayers. The thing about the US losing its grip on the wo…

You are going to have to cite more for those claims. Steve Jobs was born in San Francisco. He is as Syrian as Trump is.

This is as biased an Anti-US take as any. Will not grace the rest of the claims with a response.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#75
post #62
post #7

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's…

It's easy to see why your argument is wrong with a simple hypothetical: what if they were still making DDR4 today? Would people still buy it? The answer is an obvious "fuck yeah", even if you ignore the DDR5 price gouging. People will buy it because people still have DDR4 hardware, and that hardware is still extremely relevant. So if there's a market for it, but none of the suppliers are trying to sell to it... Wtf i…

Basic capitalism logic is that if you think it's stupid, you put your money where your mouth is, set up a DRAM fab, and get rich.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#76
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the U.S., competitors are allowed to act in similar ways in response to economic realities, as long as they each arrive at that decision independently. But publicly anchoring your price to a competitor’s is potentially illegal. > Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct ) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or…

Identical prices are often a sign of intense competition. Every gas station on a corner has the same price because it's a highly competitive market not because of collusion. The prices of the much more lucrative chocolate bars inside the gas stations are less likely to be identical.

"Every gas station on a corner has the same price because it's a highly competitive market not because of collusion."

Huh? I can go to most any gas station-occupied intersection and you will always find two that match and one (usually a Persian-owned Chevron) which is consistently a dollar or more higher per gallon across all grades of fuel.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#77
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling. Depends if US can demand ASML which uses plenty of US tech inside. In reality even the DRAM and NAND supply chain has plenty of US technologies. And you say Micron are US but they have lots of Fabs in Japan as well since they acquired Elpida.

Everyone is using something from someone, you can even argue that US owes India and Europe huge compensation because pretty much everything US did in the last half century was made using technology or people funded by those people. Johny Ive is British, Almost all the AI stuff is created by Europeans, Israelis, and Canadians - thus funded by their respective taxpayers. The thing about the US losing its grip on the wo…

> Steve Jobs is Syrian

lol he is not. at no point was he a syrian. his mom was from ohio or something.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#78
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The RAM buyers have no interest in entertaining something like that because their revenue comes mainly from the US, too. Corporations avoid picking fights with large nations where lots of revenue comes from for very obvious reasons.

So in other words, if Koreans and Europeans decide not to sell their stuff to America,quits the AI race and the capitalist do something else instead? I don't think so, in the hypothetical world where Korea and Europe don't sell to US, the American money that is invested in AI will go wherever they can actually build it, the people who are using these machines to build those models are mostly immigrants anyway.

I don't understand what this hypothetical world is supposed to be. Samsung and SK Hynix are run by Korean capitalists who want to sell their stuff to America; the reasons you're describing are precisely why they would not exit the American market just to dodge an inconvenient antitrust investigation.

Re: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron Sued in US over Memory Price Fixing

#80
post #7

HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's…

Switching off DDR3 manufacturing I can understand, but DDR4 machines are still quite relevant and usable… Ryzen 5000 series boxes for example don’t feel meaningfully weaker than they did when new. My 5950X tower certainly doesn’t, and it’d really be nice to be able to upgrade its RAM should I need to because it will continue to be useful for quite some time. AMD just re-released their 5800X3D for AM4 board users who…

They're running a business not a charity. Their job is to manufacture what the market as a whole demands. If they can make more money making HBM than DDR4 then they have to make HBM. Why would a business go out of its way to make less money?
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