[embedding-shape]

That's the thing, you care about celebrities, others about reality. If US didn't stop Korean companies from selling old manufacturing equipment to China, we'd still have RAM available, but Chinese one, so obviously every capitalist would rather blame individuals instead of the US government.

But thats my perspective, which obviously I feel like is closer to the truth on the ground, wouldn't claim it's some universal truth though.

[Dylan16807]

China seems to be ramping up memory production anyway?

I can accept that as a contributing cause but the main cause is the small number of companies that are buying all the ram. Even if there was more supply they'd still be screwing up the prices.

[flumes_whims_]

Products with Chinese made RAM can effectively only be sold in China due to US sanctions or threats thereof. It helps a bit because Chinese companies then buy less Korean RAM but not as much as it otherwise would be.

[Dylan16807]

I dunno. Sanctions on RAM are really questionable, and even a 100% tariff would still be a huge price improvement.

[embedding-shape]

"High demand" is not a concrete issue and blaming the purchasers seems so misdirected I'm almost convinced that argument originated from sockpuppets or something.

If the fries factory runs out of fries, would we blame consumers for buying too much, or the factory for not catching up with demand? Why sell stuff if it's not meant to be bought?

[Dylan16807]

If an industrial plant figures out a new way to turn fries into fuel and starts buying all the fries in the country at any price up to $50 a pound, I do blame them for the resulting price spike. This is not consumer demand.

I don't much blame the factory that's already running 24/7 for failing to catch up in the short term. I'm not going to insist they do the impossible, or that they should have forseen a demand spike that caught us all by surprise.

[mastermage]

See the problem is they bought fries, that haven't been produced yet, with money that doesn't exist. For end users that do not want fries.

[dv_dt]

The large ai companies bought advance purchases of memory while the actual buildouts are massively lagging and will probably never materialize at even 70% of planned capacity for years. They are financed and motivated to create their own tulip craze disconnected with actual need

[intended]

What the heck?

High demand and a long lead time product - you can’t spin up fabs overnight to adapt to demand.

This creates a period where the people with the largest amount of capital can out compete other buyers in the market.

This is the situation at play right now. Your model is too simple.

[spockz]

The detail here is that the capital is fictive instead of liquid. It consists of companies pumping money in circles with promises of investments and orders. Most of that money will probably not change hands but in the mean time it is used collateral for other financial products and transactions.

Prices spike because all stock, current and future, is bought up with fictitious money, causing a plethora of issues around the world for all supply chains that include DDR in one way or another. Basically all form of electronics or electronics containing devices get more expensive, delayed, or even cancelled.

Life is already expensive and it is going to get more expensive fast.

That is what gets people on edge.

[sofixa]

We do still have Chinese manufactured RAM available, it's just that it's DDR4 which is not compatible with a lot of the hardware made in the past years.

[tremon]

...which is also why both Intel and AMD are reviving some of their previous DDR4-based models: the current DDR5 offerings are increasingly unsellable because of the memory shortage.