Profit doesn’t just appear. On whose cost was it made, hm?
Contract prices for DRAM and NAND have risen steeply through 2026 as AI server demand outran supply, pushing memory makers toward 40% to 50% operating margins on NAND in the first half of the year.
So, does that sound like a functioning market?
If history has taught us anything, Samsung will soon cut 5,000 jobs as part of “essential restructuring”.
This was supposed to be satire but I just saw 10 days ago they laid off or notified intended dismissal of 1,000 people.
Yay for capitalism!
I wonder if this upsets tacky leather jacket guy
By colluding to gouge chip prices. Fuck them, too.
they’re not colluding this is a left wing conspiracy theory which is weird because demand is obviously coming from ai hyperscalers
You mean the companies that have been tried and convicted in the past of forming a cartel to manipulate DRAM prices, and are now all raising prices through the roof and showing record profits, are not colluding again?
Just because the demand is coming from a different market doesn’t mean the manufacturers aren’t colluding to raise prices and gouge their customers.
i mean micron literally left the consumer dram business because ai hyperscaler demand is absolutely bonkers off the chart
this is the opposite reason to collude, why risk massive fines and blow back when money is falling from the american sky?
The first time Samsung and micron colluded on dram pricing was in the early 2000s when money was also falling from the sky due to high demand.
The fines they were charged with were a fraction of the profits they gained from price fixing.
It’s almost like having a limited number of manufacturers and a huge demand spike is actually an incentive for price fixing because they can work together to increase profits artificially.
I don’t think you really understand how price fixing and near monopoly markets work. With monopolies and near monopolies, there’s no real downside to colluding on prices, especially in the US where fines are basically guaranteed to be less than profits, and when your company is not headquartered in the US and can’t be forcibly broken apart by the government. If you’re the only company, or one of 3, then you can set whatever price you want. As long as the conspirators agree to pricing, no one will bat an eye at claims of high demand or supply chain issues because all your conspirators also have similarly high pricing.
Usually I say economists are insane cultists. But I really think you could benefit from reading some material on macroeconomics.
