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

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

#91

Post by AngryData »

russli1993 wrote: post #51
mrtksn wrote: post #38

What happens if Samsung and SK Hynix simply stop selling to US at all? Micron is in US but are the rest still in the US jurisdiction? They are selling the hottest commodity of the day. It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling.

memory is a commodity is laughable. Then software engineering is even more a commodity, the amount of engineering going into making memory chips the vast majority of people don't understand. There are a lot of software engineers getting this field after leetcoding and copy from hellointerview. Claude can write you an app in 30 minutes. Try build a lpddr5 dram chip in 30 minutes. Manufacturing know how itself is a spe…

I mean your view isn't flawless but overall I agree. Too many people think building things amount to spending money and completely overlook the thousands of people required who are not just unskilled labor hired off the street.

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

#92

Post by mywittyname »

cbg0 wrote: post #4

This was attempted before in 2022 but fell apart because plaintiff couldn't show an agreement took place https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/03/07/2...

The arguments made by the Plaintiff are thoroughly convincing to me. The fact that those 8 points are not enough to convict indicate the industry is fucked. Of course the defendants didn't leave a paper trail - they've already been convicted of collusion before.

It's the people and country that suffer when our government fails to ensure markets are free and fair.

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

#93

Post by xiphias2 »

dcrazy wrote: post #40
xiphias2 wrote: post #5

,,The plaintiffs claimed the three companies reduced D-RAM supply under the pretext of transitioning to high-bandwidth memory (HBM). "The D-RAM oligopoly companies systematically coordinated the shift to HBM and the discontinuation of DDR3 and DDR4," they said. They added that Apple's recent sweeping product price increases were the trigger for the lawsuit.'' How can they do price fixing and discontinuing a product a…

> An agreement to restrict production, sales, or output is just as illegal as direct price fixing, because reducing the supply of a product or service drives up its price. For example, the FTC challenged an agreement among competing oil importers to restrict the supply of lubricants by refusing to import or sell those products in Puerto Rico. The competitors were seeking to pressure the legislature to repeal an envir…

But Micron didn't restrict the output: it stopped producing DDR2-3-4 completely, so it's not profiting from DDR customers at all.

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

#94

Post by dheera »

russli1993 wrote: post #60

Maybe software people can get around this issue by not making every app a electron bloat? This is now more than doable now you got AI right? And it will save your job

And replace all your apps with some horrible Tcl/Tk and .NET interface?

Nobody ever made good native widgets.

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

#95

Post by pdimitar »

gruez wrote: post #33
pdimitar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mere "enthusiast" word in your question suggests the percent is not too big. But I am not sure I get your point -- elaborate, please?

The point is that just because there's a handful of people (relatively speaking) looking to buy more RAM to upgrade their last gen systems, doesn't mean there's robust demand for DRAM manufacturers to keep DDR4 manufacturing lines going. It's like arguing Sony shouldn't have exited the CRT business because there's retro enthusiasts on youtube scouring the earth for CRT monitors.

For the reasons stated above -- that DDR5-gen hardware is expensive right now -- I'd think the DDR4-gen market will remain alive for quite a big longer. Though that's likely much more on the second-hand market side of things.

While I wouldn't necessarily agree with "a handful of people", the fact is that neither of us can prove their lean -- so no point pursuing that argument thread.

So you might be right that it's a pure numbers/statistics decision. Or I might be right that they want to herd people into the more expensive hardware while forcing them to do so by phasing out production of the cheaper hardware.

No way to truly know IMO. We are exchanging hypotheses.

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

#96

Post by mywittyname »

mrtksn wrote: post #38

What happens if Samsung and SK Hynix simply stop selling to US at all? Micron is in US but are the rest still in the US jurisdiction? They are selling the hottest commodity of the day. It’s made outside of the US using non-American tooling.

Micron is forced to stop under-investing in plants and will increase production. This will trigger everyone else to expand production and lower prices.

The whole point of the collusion is to ensure everyone is producing the same volumes and keeping prices high. The company that expands is the company that "wins" because memory is a volume game and it's all about hanging on the longest during the glut. So once one company expands, the rest have a choice of expanding or planning their exit.

If Samsung and SK lose access to the US market, they'd be fucked long term. Micron would kill them selling at higher margins and higher volumes in the USDM, while the rest are stuck competing for the international scraps - markets Micron is also allowed to compete in, if they wanted to.

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

#97

Post by caycep »

I also feel like there should be FTC or other antitrust actions against OpenAI and other hyperscalers, with nvidia being complicit, if they are cornering the market that badly on consumer RAM, SSD and other components, especially if these volume purchases are for projected datacenter that haven't even broken ground (or have been paid for) for many months.

Furthermore, I think there should be a tax on algorithmic inefficiency, in that if a LLM, frontier or not, consumes more than a certain amount of KWH per token, it should be taxed such as to put emphasis on models than can run locally, on a normal PC

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

#98

Post by dktbs »

iwontberude wrote: post #87
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The AI bubble is an insane distortion and the gravy train isn’t going to last forever. Betting the farm on everlasting datacenter demand is myopic. 2. In a healthy, competitive market there would be smaller manufacturers that’d be happy to take up the big guys’ discarded business.

Deleted

Not sure I understand this statement. Apple is affected by DRAM price fixing the same as any other PC manufacturer.

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

#99

Post by Stitch4223 »

mywittyname wrote: post #92
cbg0 wrote: post #4

This was attempted before in 2022 but fell apart because plaintiff couldn't show an agreement took place https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/03/07/2...

The arguments made by the Plaintiff are thoroughly convincing to me. The fact that those 8 points are not enough to convict indicate the industry is fucked. Of course the defendants didn't leave a paper trail - they've already been convicted of collusion before. It's the people and country that suffer when our government fails to ensure markets are free and fair.

If there is no agreement, then the magic term is "tacit collusion."

Why not ask the same ridiculous amount of money your competitors do? People seem to be paying for it. Their fault. If suppliers have sufficiently different products, they can make some more expensive, others cheaper; on average, everybody pays more. A high barrier to entry might help such practices.

That doesn't mean I'm saying this is what is happening. Sometimes things just suck, and somebody bought the world's supply of RAM wafers to use as frisbees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion

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

#100

Post by jauntywundrkind »

tommy_axle wrote: post #2

It wouldn't be a first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

Total fines of about half a billion. Thats not nothing but it also does not seem like a real disincentive.

Samsung is about to hand out ~$26B in bonuses. SK Hynix something similar-ish.

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