Markets only "figure things out" in a petri dish economy where:
1) There are no barriers to entry for competitors (e.g. protectionist tariffs, equal access to capital for everyone)
2) There are perfect substitutes available, so transitioning to a competitor is seamless and free (e.g. no requirement to store data in Country X, no vendor lock-in, no security compliance)
3) The industry is not a "natural monopoly" when only a handful of vendors can operate due to capital investment and national/global distribution required (see power utilities, telecoms, petrochemicals)
4) Profitability attracts competitors (won't happen because of #3), but heavy competition prevents abnormal profits from accumulating to a single player (happens because of #1, #2 and #3)
When markets don't figure things out, as is the case around the world, you get a tangled mess of market failures, government intervention and lobbying to neuter proposed interventions.
Markets are never perfect but over the course of history they are a pretty good mechanism to solve these type of problems. Not sure why we think taxing hyperscalers differently is the answer. Government usually does worse than the market when it comes to sorting it out.
My argument is not that market is perfect but that the alternatives are probably far worse, like a new tax on a specific group of companies.
The course of history, from borders to leadership choices and technological advances like seafaring has been determined to a much greater extent by organized religion and state-sanctioned warfare than it has by the open and free operation of markets.
We see that market is very irrational now and it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech.
By the time market figures things out, you may no longer have services, and hardware that you use daily. When such amounts of stupid money are pumped into a single industry, even if all AI companies went out of business tomorrow, it's going to take years for things to go back to normal.
FWIW, I'm not advocating taxes, as I think that won't really do anything. I don't know what the solution is either.
Sounds like hyperbole. Yes the world is connected yes we are seeing shortages, yes the market is imperfect and it lags but this is how things get fixed. Prices are sorted out, manufacturers make bets on long term capacity. Some will be losers, some will be winners.
My guess is that many of the current people saying "technology is over and no one will afford their own computer" might have been born after the previous shortages, so it's in reality their first shortage and they have no memories (nor interest reading about) the previous ones, that all eventually washed over, even if at those points there were also people claiming that "No one will have their own SSD in the future, because prices will always be super expensive for consumers from now on".
That's my hypothesis I spent a whole of 30 seconds thinking about anyways.
Market is fixing it. Memory makers prioritized HBM and enterprise NAND, some, like Crucial, went out of consumer business entirely.
At the same time, the rational market is behaving rationally - they're not increasing production because they're fearing AI bubble could burst, leaving them with oversupply and expensive factories.
The market, apart from AI market, is behaving exactly as it's designed and as it should. But it doesn't mean outcome is good for everyone.
> ...and it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech.
Nah. For decades software engineers have been more expensive than the cost of buying the extra hardware needed for vastly inefficient software. There are orders of magnitude of inefficiency there. So there's a ton of slack in the world's software that can be taken up by software engineers while hardware is scarce, pushing back the date where there will really be a problem probably by decades more.
Of course software engineers will see a problem though, because they'll have to learn to to write efficient software again.
ie. "Great, but now make it work with less RAM" will be a thing again, instead of "It needs more RAM so order some as it's cheaper than your time to fix the code".
What we're seeing is the natural conclusion of VC distortion in a market. There is so much money being pumped into AI speculatively now that it's hurting normal and sustainable businesses in other parts of the economy.
The solution might have to be mandatory rationing of some kind to avoid a situation where only a handful of AI giants are able to buy essential components. We can't just throw the rest of the economy under a bus to support the AI bubble for a few more months.
I'm working with a business right now that would like to buy some new servers for sensible, boring business reasons. It is having trouble because the prices from their normal suppliers are now extremely high - if the components are even available at all. This business has nothing to do with AI or Big Tech and yet it's at risk of being unable to continue normal operations in much the same way that a business would be affected if the phone networks were all switched off or the water supply to its office was cut. We regulate those industries because their continued reasonable operation is essential to make sure everyone else can continue to operate reasonably as well.
I'm seeing the same thing. I was consulting a group of people in my city that wanted to digitize massive load of old VHS tapes. No AI, no crazy tech, just standard, boring storage+network infrastructure.
I'm looking at the procurement sheet that I made for them a year ago. Half of the items are no longer available, while the other half became so expensive that we'd probably build 10 of such labs with these costs a year ago.
I'm also looking at my home NAS right now - I pray not even a plastic clip breaks inside, because I'd have to shut it down.
While these are still likely the first things that you'd think of being affected, I'm sure the effects are rippling through essentially every industry that utilizes these components in their supply chain. Which is probably - every industry nowadays?
I wish this comment can be on the absolute top of this page. This really is one of my frustrations with the AI bubble.
Fwiw, the days of creating an good ol' reliable hosting provider/Vps provider are over. I looked extensively into it one time out of curiosity but this would be one of the worst times in history to do that.
We would be sort of stuck with the options that we have right now and more and more shops in Lowend are even shutting down or raising prices with the sheer ram crisis and even HDD and storage crisis now.
A provider in LET had a post which said, "what should we providers do to deal with the ram shortage/ram prices"
These providers gave competition/had different unique features too to have chosen them but they were also incredibly price sensitive and the AI bubble blew the sensitivity by raising the prices almost 5 times or more. This would impact real businesses.
Thank you for creating this comment. I hope more people can read this. I genuinely just want this bubble to burst asap so that we can see a sense of rationality back within the market/the market functioning as expected without the immense irrationality/unpredictability of future.
another point is this, from my hosting provider idea, I shut it down. Why? because it literally makes 0 sense to start now, its postponed indefinitely untill the bubble bursts/ram prices are decreased.
How many other projects might be going through something similar. Gck1's comment next to mine also gives an example of a project whose value of cost increased 10 times.
How many of such projects would simply be unable to be built because of the ram inflation can't be underestimated imo.
and forget people who wish to game and many other things too. Basic comodities in the previous year or two feel like luxury now. All because of AI. It's insane.
I think that’s a massive stretch. What we are seeing is a new frontier in tech that nobody knows where it will land yet. Hyperscalers see a future where if they don’t build now that they might be left behind.
Absolutely VC money is flowing around but I think it’s unclear where the cards fall yet.
Not sure what you would regulate here. I hate the tripe that America and China are at war but I do think it’s not a great decision to stop the current work the west is doing as China is pushing full steam ahead.
> it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech
What does this even mean? I know people on the internet sometimes exaggerate, but I cannot even begin to find a more charitable meaning with this, what exactly will be "destroyed" in "tech" because of prices going up for a year or two?
Here's an easy experiment to conduct: look around the room at your home and count all the devices that have a CPU, RAM, SSD or HDD.
Then take a look at your bank statement to see what are the services you pay for monthly that also require the same hardware.
Now, imagine that these devices or services can no longer procure RAM, SSD or HDD. There's no more available supply for these components, because this is what's happening.
Would you still be able to have these devices if they all broke tomorrow? What about your hypothetical Backblaze subscription? Would you still be able to have an off-site backup?
“Parroting” is not very constructive language but I will respond.
How would you propose solving it? My opinion is that government cannot solve the problem better than the market. That’s not to say the market is ideal or perfect but one of the better tools available. GPU prices might stay high for a number of years. I don’t think that is inherently bad. Constraints breed innovation and help guide market participants into the right direction.
I think folks often get hung up on the market thinking it’s a perfect tool or it will realign issues instantly. That’s not true. Demand is high, price catches up and eventually either that thesis behind the demand is correct and eventually supply increases or that thesis is proven wrong and demand collapses below original baseline.
Obviously that’s a simplified version of it above but I don’t know what folks like yourself are poking. How is a tax on hyperscalers effective? I suspect most folks repeat this idea because they are in the anti-AI camp. Should we tax EV manufacturers because they may be buying up battery supply? I don’t know if I want the government making those kind of decisions.
It (GPU prices getting out of hand) started when, 2012? What's constructive in saying "the market will correct itself" after 14 years of no sign of that happening?
I don't know what the solution is since I'm not an economist, but I also don't have to be a pilot to declare someone fucked up when I see a helicopter on a tree.
EVs are a very tangible thing that are on the road, compare that with crypto and NFT which is ??????
Because this perfect version of capitalism you think exists, doesn't.
We live in a world with markets dominated by cartels of tech companies who don't play by the rules. Every other industry that impacts society in a negative way typically pays some sort of specialized tax to offset that, I don't know why these tech oligarchs shouldn't have too. It's wild how people just want to let them do whatever they want.
Everyone says we need to deregulate tech, and certain industries to get ahead of China.. Isn't it funny how their largely government controlled economy (to a degree) is annihilating the west on all fronts economically. We need far more regulation.
China will defeat the West solely because it regulates its billionaires, not the other way around like we have it in the West. And I hope so, the world is rooting for you China.
Way to put words in people mouths. Markets are imperfect but I do believe on average they are one of the better tools to solve supply and demand issues.
I don’t know who will come out winners but I do agree that China did well taking the playbook from Singapore and navigating their country through incredible amounts of growth. They are still facing depressing housing prices and deflation in other parts of the economy.
There are absolutely areas where markets breakdown, thinking problems where impacts are on longer horizons but for simple supply and demand like what we are seeing today, things will sort out in a couple years.
Markets only "figure things out" in a petri dish economy where:
1) There are no barriers to entry for competitors (e.g. protectionist tariffs, equal access to capital for everyone)
2) There are perfect substitutes available, so transitioning to a competitor is seamless and free (e.g. no requirement to store data in Country X, no vendor lock-in, no security compliance)
3) The industry is not a "natural monopoly" when only a handful of vendors can operate due to capital investment and national/global distribution required (see power utilities, telecoms, petrochemicals)
4) Profitability attracts competitors (won't happen because of #3), but heavy competition prevents abnormal profits from accumulating to a single player (happens because of #1, #2 and #3)
When markets don't figure things out, as is the case around the world, you get a tangled mess of market failures, government intervention and lobbying to neuter proposed interventions.
Markets are never perfect but over the course of history they are a pretty good mechanism to solve these type of problems. Not sure why we think taxing hyperscalers differently is the answer. Government usually does worse than the market when it comes to sorting it out.
My argument is not that market is perfect but that the alternatives are probably far worse, like a new tax on a specific group of companies.
The course of history, from borders to leadership choices and technological advances like seafaring has been determined to a much greater extent by organized religion and state-sanctioned warfare than it has by the open and free operation of markets.
1 reply →
Market only exists due to government.
1 reply →
it's hard to think when science contradicts your beliefs eh ?
2 replies →
We see that market is very irrational now and it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech.
By the time market figures things out, you may no longer have services, and hardware that you use daily. When such amounts of stupid money are pumped into a single industry, even if all AI companies went out of business tomorrow, it's going to take years for things to go back to normal.
FWIW, I'm not advocating taxes, as I think that won't really do anything. I don't know what the solution is either.
Sounds like hyperbole. Yes the world is connected yes we are seeing shortages, yes the market is imperfect and it lags but this is how things get fixed. Prices are sorted out, manufacturers make bets on long term capacity. Some will be losers, some will be winners.
My guess is that many of the current people saying "technology is over and no one will afford their own computer" might have been born after the previous shortages, so it's in reality their first shortage and they have no memories (nor interest reading about) the previous ones, that all eventually washed over, even if at those points there were also people claiming that "No one will have their own SSD in the future, because prices will always be super expensive for consumers from now on".
That's my hypothesis I spent a whole of 30 seconds thinking about anyways.
4 replies →
Market is fixing it. Memory makers prioritized HBM and enterprise NAND, some, like Crucial, went out of consumer business entirely.
At the same time, the rational market is behaving rationally - they're not increasing production because they're fearing AI bubble could burst, leaving them with oversupply and expensive factories.
The market, apart from AI market, is behaving exactly as it's designed and as it should. But it doesn't mean outcome is good for everyone.
4 replies →
> ...and it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech.
Nah. For decades software engineers have been more expensive than the cost of buying the extra hardware needed for vastly inefficient software. There are orders of magnitude of inefficiency there. So there's a ton of slack in the world's software that can be taken up by software engineers while hardware is scarce, pushing back the date where there will really be a problem probably by decades more.
Of course software engineers will see a problem though, because they'll have to learn to to write efficient software again.
ie. "Great, but now make it work with less RAM" will be a thing again, instead of "It needs more RAM so order some as it's cheaper than your time to fix the code".
What we're seeing is the natural conclusion of VC distortion in a market. There is so much money being pumped into AI speculatively now that it's hurting normal and sustainable businesses in other parts of the economy.
The solution might have to be mandatory rationing of some kind to avoid a situation where only a handful of AI giants are able to buy essential components. We can't just throw the rest of the economy under a bus to support the AI bubble for a few more months.
I'm working with a business right now that would like to buy some new servers for sensible, boring business reasons. It is having trouble because the prices from their normal suppliers are now extremely high - if the components are even available at all. This business has nothing to do with AI or Big Tech and yet it's at risk of being unable to continue normal operations in much the same way that a business would be affected if the phone networks were all switched off or the water supply to its office was cut. We regulate those industries because their continued reasonable operation is essential to make sure everyone else can continue to operate reasonably as well.
I'm seeing the same thing. I was consulting a group of people in my city that wanted to digitize massive load of old VHS tapes. No AI, no crazy tech, just standard, boring storage+network infrastructure.
I'm looking at the procurement sheet that I made for them a year ago. Half of the items are no longer available, while the other half became so expensive that we'd probably build 10 of such labs with these costs a year ago.
I'm also looking at my home NAS right now - I pray not even a plastic clip breaks inside, because I'd have to shut it down.
While these are still likely the first things that you'd think of being affected, I'm sure the effects are rippling through essentially every industry that utilizes these components in their supply chain. Which is probably - every industry nowadays?
I wish this comment can be on the absolute top of this page. This really is one of my frustrations with the AI bubble.
Fwiw, the days of creating an good ol' reliable hosting provider/Vps provider are over. I looked extensively into it one time out of curiosity but this would be one of the worst times in history to do that.
We would be sort of stuck with the options that we have right now and more and more shops in Lowend are even shutting down or raising prices with the sheer ram crisis and even HDD and storage crisis now.
A provider in LET had a post which said, "what should we providers do to deal with the ram shortage/ram prices"
These providers gave competition/had different unique features too to have chosen them but they were also incredibly price sensitive and the AI bubble blew the sensitivity by raising the prices almost 5 times or more. This would impact real businesses.
Thank you for creating this comment. I hope more people can read this. I genuinely just want this bubble to burst asap so that we can see a sense of rationality back within the market/the market functioning as expected without the immense irrationality/unpredictability of future.
another point is this, from my hosting provider idea, I shut it down. Why? because it literally makes 0 sense to start now, its postponed indefinitely untill the bubble bursts/ram prices are decreased.
How many other projects might be going through something similar. Gck1's comment next to mine also gives an example of a project whose value of cost increased 10 times.
How many of such projects would simply be unable to be built because of the ram inflation can't be underestimated imo.
and forget people who wish to game and many other things too. Basic comodities in the previous year or two feel like luxury now. All because of AI. It's insane.
I think that’s a massive stretch. What we are seeing is a new frontier in tech that nobody knows where it will land yet. Hyperscalers see a future where if they don’t build now that they might be left behind.
Absolutely VC money is flowing around but I think it’s unclear where the cards fall yet.
Not sure what you would regulate here. I hate the tripe that America and China are at war but I do think it’s not a great decision to stop the current work the west is doing as China is pushing full steam ahead.
1 reply →
> it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech
What does this even mean? I know people on the internet sometimes exaggerate, but I cannot even begin to find a more charitable meaning with this, what exactly will be "destroyed" in "tech" because of prices going up for a year or two?
Here's an easy experiment to conduct: look around the room at your home and count all the devices that have a CPU, RAM, SSD or HDD.
Then take a look at your bank statement to see what are the services you pay for monthly that also require the same hardware.
Now, imagine that these devices or services can no longer procure RAM, SSD or HDD. There's no more available supply for these components, because this is what's happening.
Would you still be able to have these devices if they all broke tomorrow? What about your hypothetical Backblaze subscription? Would you still be able to have an off-site backup?
9 replies →
> We see that market is very irrational now and it can stay irrational
That meme refers to speculation on stock market prices. Nobody is buying up RAM with the expectation of making speculative gains on it.
People keep parroting this but I don't see GPU prices sorting themselves out.
“Parroting” is not very constructive language but I will respond.
How would you propose solving it? My opinion is that government cannot solve the problem better than the market. That’s not to say the market is ideal or perfect but one of the better tools available. GPU prices might stay high for a number of years. I don’t think that is inherently bad. Constraints breed innovation and help guide market participants into the right direction.
I think folks often get hung up on the market thinking it’s a perfect tool or it will realign issues instantly. That’s not true. Demand is high, price catches up and eventually either that thesis behind the demand is correct and eventually supply increases or that thesis is proven wrong and demand collapses below original baseline.
Obviously that’s a simplified version of it above but I don’t know what folks like yourself are poking. How is a tax on hyperscalers effective? I suspect most folks repeat this idea because they are in the anti-AI camp. Should we tax EV manufacturers because they may be buying up battery supply? I don’t know if I want the government making those kind of decisions.
It (GPU prices getting out of hand) started when, 2012? What's constructive in saying "the market will correct itself" after 14 years of no sign of that happening?
I don't know what the solution is since I'm not an economist, but I also don't have to be a pilot to declare someone fucked up when I see a helicopter on a tree.
EVs are a very tangible thing that are on the road, compare that with crypto and NFT which is ??????
3 replies →
They didn’t the last two memory crunches. Litigative action figured it out first.
Price fixing is not a free market, and that’s (probably) not what’s happening this time. It’s simple supply and demand.
Because this perfect version of capitalism you think exists, doesn't.
We live in a world with markets dominated by cartels of tech companies who don't play by the rules. Every other industry that impacts society in a negative way typically pays some sort of specialized tax to offset that, I don't know why these tech oligarchs shouldn't have too. It's wild how people just want to let them do whatever they want.
Everyone says we need to deregulate tech, and certain industries to get ahead of China.. Isn't it funny how their largely government controlled economy (to a degree) is annihilating the west on all fronts economically. We need far more regulation.
China will defeat the West solely because it regulates its billionaires, not the other way around like we have it in the West. And I hope so, the world is rooting for you China.
Way to put words in people mouths. Markets are imperfect but I do believe on average they are one of the better tools to solve supply and demand issues.
I don’t know who will come out winners but I do agree that China did well taking the playbook from Singapore and navigating their country through incredible amounts of growth. They are still facing depressing housing prices and deflation in other parts of the economy.
There are absolutely areas where markets breakdown, thinking problems where impacts are on longer horizons but for simple supply and demand like what we are seeing today, things will sort out in a couple years.