Comment by zozbot234
5 days ago
Actually, this seems to be mostly a spike in retail prices, not wholesale DRAM contracts that are only up 60% or so in the past few months according to Samsung. So we should most likely place at least some fraction of the blame on our fellow consumers for overreacting to the news and hoarding RAM at overinflated prices. DRAM sticks are the new toilet paper.
> Actually, this seems to be mostly a spike in retail prices, not wholesale DRAM contracts that are only up 60% or so in the past few months according to Samsung. So we should most likely place at least some fraction of the blame on our fellow consumers for overreacting to the news and hoarding RAM at overinflated prices. DRAM sticks are the new toilet paper.
What is your source on that? Moore's Law is Dead directly contradicts your claims by saying that OpenAI has purchased unfinished wafers to squeeze the market.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BORRBce5TGw
Reuters: “Samsung hikes memory chip prices by up to 60% as shortage worsens, sources say,” Nov 14 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/samsung-hikes-memory-chi...
Tom’s Hardware: “Samsung raises memory chip prices by up to 60% since September as AI data-center buildout strangles supply,” Nov 2025. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/samsung-raises-me...
Note the consistent "up to 60% since September" figure in the above recent reports. That's for one module capacity, with others being up 30% to 50% - and it certainly isn't the 200% or more we're apparently seeing now in the retail market. That's pure panic hoarding, which is actually a very common overreaction to a sudden price spike.
"only" ? Nobody is hoarding RAM (at least yet, consumers seem mostly blindsided by it), this is directly caused by industry thirst for AI
Lenovo Stockpiling PC Memory Due to 'Unprecedented' AI Squeeze - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46041505