I don't think RAM vendors have formed a cartel and I think this is knee-jerk anger without any thought. RAM is a commodity product with massive upfront capex costs, and those always have boom-and-bust cycles. At various points in the 2010s and 2020s RAM vendors were getting eaten alive by a supply glut, this would not have happened if they were a cartel.
Is it really so hard to believe that RAM prices are up because demand is simply exceeding supply, especially in a market where additional supply takes years and billions of dollars to come online? There's no need to posit cartel behavior and a fair amount of evidence that there is none.
The AI boom started in 2022. Prices rose THREE years later after 2025 sanction and tariff style legislation to protect the market during a price hike.
I got a 4090 in 2023 for 1600, a 5090 in 2025 for 2000 with 256 DDR5 for about $1,000 ... and then, after some protectionist legislation passed, these prices quickly shot to the moon.
Man I think you're just spewing word salad and a lot of what you've written is either wrong or not even wrong. The AI hype really got started in 2022, but hype on social media doesn't mean anything for RAM prices, only real buildouts do that. They rose pretty steadily until OpenAI revealed their shenanigans re: locking up a ton of supply from two different vendors with secret contracts, and that's when the takeoff really started. This is definitely scummy behavior from OpenAI (big surprise), and I actually think they arguably should see an antitrust investigation for that (not that that will ever happen), but OpenAI is a buyer; that's not the same thing as the vendors forming a cartel.
You can't say "connect the dots" at the end of a raving, mostly-incorrect post and act like you've made an ironclad argument.
I don't think RAM vendors have formed a cartel and I think this is knee-jerk anger without any thought. RAM is a commodity product with massive upfront capex costs, and those always have boom-and-bust cycles. At various points in the 2010s and 2020s RAM vendors were getting eaten alive by a supply glut, this would not have happened if they were a cartel.
Is it really so hard to believe that RAM prices are up because demand is simply exceeding supply, especially in a market where additional supply takes years and billions of dollars to come online? There's no need to posit cartel behavior and a fair amount of evidence that there is none.
The RAM vendors have formed cartels previously and been convicted, so although demand is exceeding supply it is not that crazy to at least consider.
The AI boom started in 2022. Prices rose THREE years later after 2025 sanction and tariff style legislation to protect the market during a price hike.
I got a 4090 in 2023 for 1600, a 5090 in 2025 for 2000 with 256 DDR5 for about $1,000 ... and then, after some protectionist legislation passed, these prices quickly shot to the moon.
Connect the dots.
Man I think you're just spewing word salad and a lot of what you've written is either wrong or not even wrong. The AI hype really got started in 2022, but hype on social media doesn't mean anything for RAM prices, only real buildouts do that. They rose pretty steadily until OpenAI revealed their shenanigans re: locking up a ton of supply from two different vendors with secret contracts, and that's when the takeoff really started. This is definitely scummy behavior from OpenAI (big surprise), and I actually think they arguably should see an antitrust investigation for that (not that that will ever happen), but OpenAI is a buyer; that's not the same thing as the vendors forming a cartel.
You can't say "connect the dots" at the end of a raving, mostly-incorrect post and act like you've made an ironclad argument.
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