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0 pointsallworms3mo ago0 comments

A bit of a nitpick - that's not what the "eye of the storm" is. In fact, if you perceive RAM prices as leveling off, that would be the "eye of the storm", meaning a brief, deceptive calm surrounded by... storm.

Truly I have seen not even a hint of reason to believe prices would come back down in the near term. Fab allocation is booked years out, and building out new manufacturing capabilities is difficult and slow. Everything I'm seeing points in the same direction: this is only going to keep getting worse for consumers month after month for a long time.

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userulluipeste3mo ago

If the current RAM heavy buyers, the AI powerhouses investors, don't get the into a profitable state of business, then sustaining this rhythm "for a long time" becomes impossible. It won't matter much that "fab allocation is booked years out" if the client that expects the goods goes out of business, doesn't it? I, for one, don't find convincing hints that this free AI crazy partying will go on for long, so then what gives?

allwormsOP3mo ago

I think we both agree on that, just on different timelines. I think there's enough VC money to drag this out long enough for it to really hurt. And the longer they do, the more the entire planet becomes dependent on AI companies staying afloat lest the whole economy collapse.

mschuster913mo ago

> If the current RAM heavy buyers, the AI powerhouses investors, don't get the into a profitable state of business, then sustaining this rhythm "for a long time" becomes impossible.

Exactly that is the problem with the "pork cycle" we are seeing [1] - there aren't that many manufacturers and ODMs around nowadays for RAM, storage, CPUs and GPUs. The ecosystem was so much more vibrant even 10 years ago. When the AI bubble collapses, it will take the entire world's economy down the drain, and I think that quite a few of the brands we have now will be extinct after this iteration.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_cycle

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