I’ve Had Enough of the RAM Crisis.
It’s hardly a secret these days that everything has gotten more expensive, and there’s plenty of blame to go around if you want to point fingers. Everything from gas to groceries has gone up in almost equal measure. But since I follow the tech industry, the one I want to focus on today is the memory market, because that has gone up to an exorbitant level. And frankly, I’ve had enough.
The price for memory has gone through the roof, and you can see it in many places. Look at the current generation consoles, which have all increased in price in their own generation markedly. Now when consoles get retired, the aftermarket does tend to mark them up in price. But never have they gone up when they were in the current generation without any additions to improve them.
What about computers? It’s just as bad. All of them have skyrocketed as well. Even the largest computer maker in the world, Apple, had to raise the prices on their current models from the Macs to the iPads. In case you didn’t know, they already had a pretty good markup on equipment as it stood. Even outgoing CEO Tim Cook called it a “hundred year flood.” And he was absolutely right in that assertion.
Now you may ask yourself who’s at the center of all this. I like to call them the memory cartel, because that’s how they are acting. The three main culprits are Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix. What has driven them to raise prices to such insane levels?
AI.
Yep, everyone’s favorite topic in tech. The AI companies are rushing to build no shortage of data centers everywhere they can. So they need to gobble up as much memory as they can for those centers, which has given these three main players carte blanche to skyrocket their prices. Why? Simply because they can. One of them, Micron, went so hard into the paint, so to speak, on selling to these companies that they gave their consumers the finger and completely quit producing for that market so they could jump on the money train with full force.
Now you might say “Hey Mark, what can we do?” Well you’re in luck because things are already being done. There’s no promise it will change anything, but there’s been no shortage of coverage on a lawsuit filed against these companies in California. I personally hope it is successful, and brings about a reckoning for the cartel and ideally the AI companies who are as unpopular with consumers as they have ever been.
There’s a class action suit underway in California against all three companies for alleged price fixing. I certainly see their perspective. That suit maintains that the three leaders of the memory cartel are conspiring together to drive up prices to create maximum profit for themselves, and I have little doubt that isn’t the case.
To further prove that point, Micron already started crying when Apple approached the US government about buying memory from China instead. The memory manufacturer pitched quite the fit at the idea, because they felt it was going to harm the US tech manufacturing industry. No, Micron. It’s going to harm your profits. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it’s anything other than that. Micron doesn’t give a damn about anything but its own bottom line. This supposed regard for the industry sounds good, but it’s as genuine as an iPhone on Temu, in my opinion.
The memory cartel is going to milk this for as long as possible. They have said they see it continuing into 2028 currently. I wouldn’t rely on that number, mind you. I’m positive they’ll move the goalposts as far as they can to get maximum benefit from this demand. All three companies, in my opinion, are run by amoral tech capitalists. (Are there other kinds?)
It’s beyond clear that the memory market needs a reckoning in the worst way possible. I sincerely hope this lawsuit brings that about for these companies. Just like I had written last week about Sony looking to create a monopoly with its end to physical media for PlayStation in 2028, we have a similar situation here with not one but three companies all creating their own version of a monopoly. And with any luck, this lawsuit will begin that very reckoning. I’d love to see some of the governments around the world start investigating as well, but I won’t hold my breath on that anytime soon.
The fact is, as consumers, that we have to stand up for ourselves and make our voices heard in situations like this. We cannot let major corporations make decisions for us, because they will never make those decisions that benefit anyone most of all. I’ve stopped pretty much all major tech purchases for the foreseeable future, and I encourage others to do the same. If our demand for their products drops, guess what? Things start changing.
That includes using AI. It’s already destroying the environment. It’s also currently being used to datamine us for every bit of knowledge it can obtain. As a consumer, I refuse to pay a cent to any AI service to help accelerate that effort. As consumers, we have the most important voice of all.
Let’s use it.
