Nor does the "market will take care of it" concept seem to be working that well nowadays but maybe there's a compromise in between extremes that will produce the most good.
No one complained about the “market” when prices cratered from oversupply, putting or nearly putting companies out of business. There is a lead time for new entrants and people are rightfully gun-shy going all in on a commodity that has had many boom/bust cycles.
With that said, the market will sort it out. Either the AI companies run out of capital or more production comes online.
Or it won’t, and this goes on so long that the market will introduce a new option.
rented compute could become so much the norm that owning compute can’t bridge the gap again.
Game consoles are shifting to discless as we speak, so no used game market. Phone leases are a thing now so console leases are probably coming. They maybe even already here if you consider game streaming. In this very thread people are suggesting that renting makes so much more sense than building that it’s almost treated as a questionable practice to own.
But once ownership of compute is no longer tenable, it doesn’t take much for the market to be coerced via money into pushing agendas via marketing. Not just political agendas. "Please drink a verification can" meme, for example.
There will be too much money to be made in leasing compute that it would never make market sense to restore ownership to the people.
> Or it won’t, and this goes on so long that the market will introduce a new option.
Micron had a gross margin of almost 87% last quarter for a commodity. Yes, it takes time to build a factory and money to buy the machines, but memory is a commodity. There is no 'secret' around creating it. That type of margin simply will not last.
What do you prefer, RAM being really expensive or RAM being out of stock?
Of course, it would be nice if there was enough supply to meet demand, but there currently is not, so it has to be one or the other. I still prefer expensive over not available.
[−]probably_wrong · 2026-11-15 Sun 12:19 UTC ·
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If I can't get any RAM then it's immaterial whether it's because I'm poor or because I'm unlucky. But if the second case ensures that (say) research institutions get as good a chance as OpenAI then that's (IMO) better than "we'd love to research your idea but Elon Musk bought all the RAM for Grok".
It wouldn't be down to luck, you just wouldn't be able to buy it. All the RAM would have been sold out about a year ago and you wouldn't have been able to buy any RAM at whatever price and wouldn't be able to for maybe years to come.
You can still buy 64GB DDR5 RAM today. It just costs a little over a thousand dollars. This price discourages enough buyers for there to be stock left.
Of course, this assumes there is no price fixing going on, which hasn't been determined, yet.
[−]newswasboring · 2026-11-15 Sun 12:59 UTC ·
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There is enough supply to meet demand, it's being hoarded for future projects not even started yet.
[−]InsidiousWombat · 2026-11-15 Sun 11:39 UTC ·
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It works just fine with working government that clamps on edge cases and breaks up monopolies.
But since Bell systems breakup billionaire caste have been heavy at work to never allow government to wield that kind of power
Supply goes to those willing to pay the highest price (because they can use them at a high productivity).
RAN has a long lead time, so supply isn’t created overnight. That’s not a “market problem” that a physics problem.
It’s not a “market failure” because some customer can buy it at the price they want. Those customers always exist (people who wouldn’t buy 2 years ago unless it was cheaper)
An unexpected change happens and we get in an adjustment process, and people like you will throw the baby out with the bathwater because you naiively imagine the system has to work perfectly.
With that said, the market will sort it out. Either the AI companies run out of capital or more production comes online.
rented compute could become so much the norm that owning compute can’t bridge the gap again.
Game consoles are shifting to discless as we speak, so no used game market. Phone leases are a thing now so console leases are probably coming. They maybe even already here if you consider game streaming. In this very thread people are suggesting that renting makes so much more sense than building that it’s almost treated as a questionable practice to own.
But once ownership of compute is no longer tenable, it doesn’t take much for the market to be coerced via money into pushing agendas via marketing. Not just political agendas. "Please drink a verification can" meme, for example.
There will be too much money to be made in leasing compute that it would never make market sense to restore ownership to the people.
Micron had a gross margin of almost 87% last quarter for a commodity. Yes, it takes time to build a factory and money to buy the machines, but memory is a commodity. There is no 'secret' around creating it. That type of margin simply will not last.
Of course, it would be nice if there was enough supply to meet demand, but there currently is not, so it has to be one or the other. I still prefer expensive over not available.
You can still buy 64GB DDR5 RAM today. It just costs a little over a thousand dollars. This price discourages enough buyers for there to be stock left.
Of course, this assumes there is no price fixing going on, which hasn't been determined, yet.
But since Bell systems breakup billionaire caste have been heavy at work to never allow government to wield that kind of power
Supply goes to those willing to pay the highest price (because they can use them at a high productivity).
RAN has a long lead time, so supply isn’t created overnight. That’s not a “market problem” that a physics problem.
It’s not a “market failure” because some customer can buy it at the price they want. Those customers always exist (people who wouldn’t buy 2 years ago unless it was cheaper)