The memory shortage is causing a repricing of consumer electronics • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by ghaff » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:10 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #66

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

> Meanwhile the AI fad is seeing huge layoffs. This is really the only point I disagree with. Layoffs are being blamed on AI, but they are really a hangover of the covid hiring boom, and subsequent bust. All the tech money is going into building data centres (and the gas turbines that power data centres), and it turns out that programmers don’t have the relevant skills to build gas turbines.

There are a bunch of factors that are intertwining. And unfortunately, some specific demographics are mostly those being most caught in the crosshairs.

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

#82

Post by autoexec » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:11 AM UTC

bdangubic wrote: post #58

7thpower wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farms are failing where? More than usual?

they are not failing, our Socialist President provides billions in handouts for Farmers so they gonna be just fine

We're losing a lot of workers. Some might consider that a good thing if they hate the idea of a large exploited underclass (or just people of a certain skin color), but it could be a problem for farms if there aren't enough hands to harvest in time.

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

#83

Post by autoexec » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #75

shimman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should society care about people making profits? Society would greatly benefit from cheap abundant ram than FAANG shares going up. I'm kinda sick about only caring that some billionaire makes more money and would rather you know... actually improve conditions to better society. This is why China is eating the West. Quite easy to start an electronics company when you have such an abundance of suppliers, compare th…

> This is why China is eating the West. Nothing to do with cheap labour.

We're also eagerly taking advantage of their cheap labour and we're taking advantage of plenty of people here at home, sometimes to the point of literal slavery (it's okay when they're prisoners or immigrants)

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

#84

Post by platevoltage » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

bdangubic wrote: post #58

7thpower wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farms are failing where? More than usual?

they are not failing, our Socialist President provides billions in handouts for Farmers so they gonna be just fine

Oh come on. What they are trying to do is turn farm owners into corporate farm employees. The handouts are just to keep their votes.

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

#85

Post by mgh2 » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

Don't forget the threat of Ebola, hantavirus, Taiwan war

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

#86

Post by ghaff » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:15 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #66

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #46

It's impressive that somehow, as if by coincidence, we're seeing the biggest inflationary drivers for decades, perhaps for centuries, all happening simultaneously. The Iran war is spiking the price of oil and will likely cause shortages of pretty much everything if it isn't ended. The Ukraine war is helping with that by destroying Russian refining capacity. The memory shortage is set to do the same to consumer electr…

> Meanwhile the AI fad is seeing huge layoffs. This is really the only point I disagree with. Layoffs are being blamed on AI, but they are really a hangover of the covid hiring boom, and subsequent bust. All the tech money is going into building data centres (and the gas turbines that power data centres), and it turns out that programmers don’t have the relevant skills to build gas turbines.

And building gas turbines (or even designing them) are probably not jobs that pay salaries developers got accustomed to, especially in Sillicon Valley, over the last 10-20 years.

Jobs at GE in Schenectady may not be what those developers are looking for even if they were qualified.

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

#87

Post by stego-tech » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:16 AM UTC

skiing_crawling wrote: post #79

stego-tech wrote: post #27

This is the biggest memory repricing cycle I've ever seen in my life; some degree of high price/limited availability and "free RAM with purchase of Doritos" cycle is always expected, but this has been the worst one yet. As other commenters have pointed out but I might have missed in the article, compute maturation is amplifying memory constraints right now and making it worse. Device upgrade cycles are getting longer…

> Even if LLMs fail spectacularly Haven't they already proven to be extremely useful? In some areas they are definitely here to stay, coding/software and search (retrieve and summarize information). There's a bunch of places where they are surely shoehorned in, overhyped, and don't belong, but there's also equally many places where they might still be transformative but aren't used yet. But overall I think the techno…

I always leave room open for failure, and that approach has generally served me well personally and professionally. I have never been punished for having an exit strategy.

Besides, the marketplace is still in its infancy for LLMs, with a lot of unanswered questions. A lot of those questions surround the commercial viability of frontier models on bespoke hyperscaler data centers with limited usage outside of LLMs specifically should those economics be non-viable. Since that's where the memory is being tied up into, that means it's a critical question to answer in order to determine long-term investment needs into further memory fabrication.

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

#88

Post by hackyhacky » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:18 AM UTC

rationalist wrote: post #78

hackyhacky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me like your attitude is that "If I can't be rich, then no one should be rich." The problem with capitalism is not that some people get rich and some people don't. The problem is that of an unfair playing field. Everyone has a body and a mind, and commerce allows us to rent out those features in exchange for pay. People who are smarter or stronger or work harder or work more will be able to benefit more…

> You should really read a bit about the philosophy that you're arguing so vehemently for, apparently without knowing anything about it. You had a good comment until you wrote that. Don't lower your standards with stupid personal attacks. > The problem with capitalism is not that some people get rich and some people don't. The problem is that of an unfair playing field. I would love for things to be fair, but I grew…

> You had a good comment until you wrote that. Don't lower your standards with stupid personal attacks.

I apoligize for judging you based on the things that you write.

> Unless you can change the human characteristic of greed, the world will always be unfair.

There is nothing wrong with greed or unfairness, to a degree. As I said in my previous comment, some personal characteristics will naturally lead to inequality of outcome. That's fine, because everyone is deriving profit from the (variable quality) work that they are personally able to produce. I would say that greed and unfairness are essential to any system of commerce, which I support.

Capitalism, on the other hand, allows inequality on a grand scale that necessarily results in a society that no longer rewards hard work: the lords own all property, everyone else works for them, and there is no way to achieve wealth competitive with that of a lord simply by labor. The laborers work to surive, and the owner class consumes all the benefits. This is the system that we spent a century of war fighting to end. It seems silly to go back to feudalism just to appease the modern-day lords.

> Instead of tearing other people down, I built myself up.

Who, do you suppose, am I tearing down? I want a society that rewards hard work. A system with no social mobility is not that system. I want people to improve themselves in order to make more money. What I don't want is a society where the owner class are able to be parasites on everyone else, producing no labor (physically or intellectually) but showing giant profit. The modern day US is increasingly distant from its much more socially mobile past, and it's only going to get worse.

I'm not saying that the current crop of billionaires haven't worked hard to get where they are. I am saying that their work is not proportional to their benefit, and at a certain point they are able to continue benefitting despite producing noting of value.

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

#89

Post by autoexec » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:18 AM UTC

KnuthIsGod wrote: post #72

richforrester wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the most overwhelming thought, reading this, is "man, capitalism is a mistake" The amounts of money circulating whilst some of us struggle to make rent ... Nothing fair, or just, about this world we live in

China going capitalist ( while remaining authoritarian ) has helped lift 800 million out of desperate poverty. I hope that India too can emulate this in my lifetime. I was born in Kerala and would love to see Indians live in a country that is as wealthy per capita ( PPP adjusted ) as Singapore or failing that even as wealthy as the USA. Capitalism has it's problems. But you struggling with rent is entirely your self-…

> But you struggling with rent is entirely your self-inflicted problem...

Yeah, that one guy and 70% of the country https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/70-americans-struggle-pay-...

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

#90

Post by stego-tech » Fri, May 22, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

aurareturn wrote: post #63

stego-tech wrote: post #27

This is the biggest memory repricing cycle I've ever seen in my life; some degree of high price/limited availability and "free RAM with purchase of Doritos" cycle is always expected, but this has been the worst one yet. As other commenters have pointed out but I might have missed in the article, compute maturation is amplifying memory constraints right now and making it worse. Device upgrade cycles are getting longer…

So with compute stagnating and memory constrained, my money is on vendors taking this as an opportunity to gradually shift away from a yearly release cadence and slow down to a biennial cycle that alternates between budget and flagship launches every other year. My bet is that vendors will simply discontinue their low margin phones, which are usually the budget phones. For example, Apple might make fewer iPhone 18 an…

I mean, that's the correct short-term read, but if LLMs in hyperscalers remain commercially viable to the point of tying up memory for several years, and if that necessitates an expansion of memory fabrication to satiate unmet demand, and if that demand ends up getting hoovered up by AI companies again due to their unmet or delayed demand from technological adoption, then Apple et al may not have much of a choice but to adopt such a profound strategy change.

There's a lot of 'ifs' there to be sure, but they'd be fools not to at least discuss the possibility internally and understand their options.