[thewebguyd]

It almost certainly is. Once people get used to the higher prices, and the companies see that the units sell anyway, there is no meaningful incentive to lower costs again.

This has played out time and time again during every other supply-side shock. Once prices go up, they don't come back down.

[bigstrat2003]

That's not true. We've seen prices from supply shock go back down (the increase in hard drive prices when there were floods in Asia 10-15 years ago comes to mind as an example). It does take a while, but it will happen eventually.

[thewebguyd]

Even then, prices stayed elevated for years. They never went back to pre-supply shock prices. Right around that time too the industry consolidated. WD bought Hitachi, Seagate bought Samsung's HDD business. It left a duopoly, so now there was no competitive pressure for a price war. Prices got locked in higher than pre-flood levels, intentionally.

For the current DRAM situation, I can almost promise we'll never see $60-$90 RAM again. Maybe, 32GB won't cost you $500 eventually, but it'll cost you $250-$350 instead of $500. If the market can bear it, why would anyone get into a price war that's just a race to the bottom where no one wins?

[bryik]

> They never went back to pre-supply shock prices.

What do you mean?

2011: 2 TB HDD for $79.99 ($0.0000400 / MB).

2012: 2 TB HDD for $157.27 ($0.0000786 / MB).

2014: 4 TB HDD for $109 ($0.0000367 / MB)

2024: 8 TB HDD for $111.98 ($0.0000140 / MB)

https://web.archive.org/web/20250318110739/http://jcmit.net/...

https://www.thecpuguide.com/pc/disk-price-history-hdd-ssd-pr...

[aaronblohowiak]

China

[drstewart]

How much are a dozen eggs at your local store? Curious to stress test your theory. I assume they're at least $10/dozen?

[thewebguyd]

For the eggs I buy, they are currently $7.99/dozen. Cheapest in my store is $5.99/dozen.

That doesn't disprove my point though. Prices are still higher as a baseline than before the supply side shock. Prices raise to a "new normal" and consumers adapt, removing pressure to lower back down to pre-shock levels.

wholesale egg prices have actually plummeted, yet retail prices have only drifted slowly downward incrementally, and have not reached the previous baseline. Its asymmetric price transmission, and its a documented economic phenomenon. "Prices go up like rockets, and fall like feathers"

[ssl-3]

Some data suggests that eggs averaged $2.19 per dozen, at retail, in May of 2026: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111

Looking at the chart, it seems to be the case that every sharp increase in price has been followed by a sharp decrease in price.

Just for fun, here's the same chart adjusted for inflation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1WXWZ

[eudamoniac]

Eggs in USA literally hit a ten year low a few months ago. I don't know where you live, probably SF or something, but a dozen eggs here is under 3 dollars.

[hyhatqtv]

PC components market has historically been highly competitive so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t quite work out for vendors who tried doing that (aside from GPUs/Nvidia)

[tokai]

Televisions literally feel in price every year for 40 years.

[philistine]

That's like the one outlier in a sea of slow price increases over time.

[jakeydus]

It's also because television producers found alternative revenue streams that allow them to sell the TVs for less while still making more. If you look for a TV without all of the adware/bloatware/spyware you can see the true cost of a TV in 2026.

[anthonyrstevens]

This was a thing before those axes you're grinding even existed.

[girvo]

They are one of the few tech segments that is still doing so, and that’s mainly down to “smart” TVs being able to get revenue in other ways.

[davikr]

Just another step into the direction of global Brazilification.