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by bakugo 189 days ago
Is anyone else deeply perturbed by the realization that a single unprofitable corporation can basically buy out the entire world's supply of computing hardware so nobody else can have it?

How did we get here? What went so wrong?
2 comments
makeitdouble 189 days ago
> unprofitable

I'm assuming you wouldn't see it as fine if the corporation was profitable.

> How did we get here?

We've always been there. Not that it makes it right, but that's an issue that is neither simple to fix nor something most law makers are guaranteed to want to fix in the first place.

Nothing in the rules stops you from cornering most markets, and an international companies with enough money can probably corner specific markets if they'd see a matching ROI.

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tavavex 189 days ago
> I'm assuming you wouldn't see it as fine if the corporation was profitable.

I feel like the implication of what they said was "think of how much worse it would be if they could truly spare no expense on these types of things". If an "unprofitable" company can do this, what could a profitable company of their size do on a whim?

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zozbot234 189 days ago
They're simply making a bet that they can put the DRAM dies to more valuable use than any of the existing alternatives, including e.g. average folks playing the latest videogames on their gaming rig. At this kind of scale, they had better be right or they are toast: they have essentially gone all-in on their bet that this whole AI thing is not going to 'pop' anytime soon.
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bakugo 189 days ago
> They're simply making a bet that they can put the DRAM dies to more valuable use than any of the existing alternatives

They can't. They know they can't. We all know they can't. But they can just keep abusing the infinite money glitch to price everyone else out, so it doesn't matter.

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sophrosyne42 189 days ago
When they find out that it is not, in fact, an infinite money glitch, they're going to have to eat that cost. It will work out great for everyone as long as they aren't bailed out.
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zozbot234 189 days ago
It's more like a waste-infinite-money glitch, if that's what they're trying. There's no way that a simple speculative attack actually makes DRAM more valuable in the long term on its own, and that's the only win condition for that kind of play. People have tried to hoard all sorts of commodities as a mere speculative play on the market, and it never works.
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fullstop 189 days ago
Perhaps ChatGPT has given them instructions.
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