Ram prices skyrocketed because a few turbotards with more money than god saw a text generation algorithm generate text and this collectively made them cream their pants.
No. RAM prices skyrocketed because the major manufacturers that supplied the consumer market shifted their production capacity toward AI data centers, creating a supply shortage in the consumer market. This effectively turned RAM into a high-demand commodity rather than the relatively accessible consumer product it once was.
RAM continues to be expensive because competing manufacturers have not stepped in to meaningfully increase supply for the consumer market. Instead, manufacturers are prioritizing the substantially more lucrative AI data center market, leaving consumers with fewer options and less competition for available supply.
Judging by the title of your post, I’m convinced you don’t understand what competition actually means in the context of economics. Competition isn’t simply the existence of multiple companies. It’s the willingness and ability of those companies to enter a market, increase supply, and compete for consumers by offering better prices.
Even though I agree with you, I think OP is saying the same thing but in a nutshell and with more emotion than logic. They’re not wrong but not correct because it’s not the full answer.
CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, a billionaire, said he thinks it’s terrible for people have RAM. He said it in the context of being against local inference. It’s really not hard to see what they really think. They want to hoard all the RAM and make you rent it from them.
Ah that’s a didn’t perspective. I see what you’re saying now. Well done.
We live in a weird late stage capitalist situation where the producer sees the consumer as competition which is why we’re seeing the artificial scarcity and GPUs just sitting idle in warehouses.
Once again, you are misusing the word competition. Consumers aren’t producing RAM, adding supply to the market, or competing with another company for sales.
If these companies want to rent computing power to consumers while reserving the RAM supply for themselves, they are consolidating control over the market. That’s a supply-side market concentration issue, not competition between consumers and manufacturers.
Sam Altman, OpenAI, and other tech executives don’t view the consumer base as competition. They view consumers as potential customers for their computing services. They want to own the infrastructure and rent access to it. A consumer renting computing power from a company isn’t competing with that company.
You’re confusing two entirely different economic concepts. You’re wrong, and I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m simply pointing out an objective distinction in how competition works in economics.
Why would I buy what they’re selling when I can run their product on my gaming computer?
I have no idea… Why would you buy what they’re selling if you can run it on your gaming computer?
You doing something on your own in the same way a company would do it for profit still isn’t competition as defined by economics.
You still don’t know what competition means.
Banks/investors see bubble and aren’t adequately regulated.
Deeper theorising: The drive for AI is both for surveillance and control using AI, AND for raising prices on computing gear so that the average person cannot afford to own anything but a terminal where their privacy and choices are completely out of their hands.
This is both backlash to a CEO being killed AND privacy actions digging into advertising revenues.
Tin foil hat: it’s become far too easy for the average person to collect a dangerous amount of data. They have to start controlling PC supplies and eventually move everyone to subscription services so they can keep data control.
They definitely see personal computing as competition. They see people as potential market slaves.
And if scam altman wants my ram, he’s going to need to pay me $4k/gb
Goes up $1k every time I mention it
He can rent half my RAM at $10 per mb per hour.
Wanna utilize 32gb of my ram?
32 GB of my ram will cost you a cool $32,768 per hour.
Edit: sorry the grace period has ended and enshittification has begun. It’s now $15 per mb of ddr4 and $30 per mb of ddr5 (but it’s faster!)
Why use a linear increase when you could use an exponential increase?
I like logarithmic increases.
You know what, fair enough, I didn’t think big enough
1000^(# of times mentioned)
Which makes the current price $1000000000000/gb
AI companies don’t see normal people at all. They’re too busy worrying about keeping the scheme rolling or trying to birth the digital god they think will give their life meaning.
Revelation 13:15-17
And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.
This is always a fun game when the next scary trend rolls in. Ok, so: "… image of the beast might even speak… " could just be the LLM console interface, but LLMs don’t really have an “image” so… tenuous.
“… causes all… to be marked…” Could refer to having “AI” in your resume/CV.
"… on the right hand… " gonna go with mouse RSI from typing less in IDEs and mousing around more.
“…and on the forehead…” since you’re thinking less your brow will spend less time furrowed, so like a botox injection between your eyebrows.
“… no one can buy or sell without the mark…” Would be market paralysis waiting to see if the bubble will pop, but AI stans don’t fret.
That’s pretty funny
“Image” I take to be the AI itself if true. The reason is:
Man is made in God’s image
GenAI is trained on man’s outputs, etc. It is literally made in the image of man (this is a strong theological argument against allowing AI to generate sacred content or giving it human rights in general)
The first beast has a wound, this has been ascribed to Donald trump
The second beast could be Elon Musk with his image being Grok
I’m not saying that Trump is THE antichrist, but he is certainly AN antichrist, and these patterns could appear (prophecies can be fulfilled multiple times before they are finally fully fulfilled)
Did you just figure out capitalism?
normal don’t use that much RAM each but there’s billions of em
? We’re bad at making ram and they found a way to use the sticks/factories, messing with demand. No conspiracy required?
