The great memory panic of 2026 – Asymco

kryptiskt•21 minutes ago

This reads like Apple fanfiction to me.

> But then Apple can negotiate on another basis and say, well, if you don’t do us a favor here and give us a better rate, then maybe we won’t work with you when all this settles down. You know things are going to settle down. These things are always cyclical. There’s never been a semiconductor boom that’s not followed by a semiconductor bust. Never. And they know it.

I have to think that the RAM suppliers wouldn't be that easy to intimidate with threats, since they know perfectly well how few alternatives Apple has. And they are also perfectly aware that Apple will play hardball with them when the market turns, regardless of whether they were nice to Apple now.

coredog64•15 minutes ago

Apple bought PA Semi as the starting point to getting off of Intel. Theoretically, memory seems like something Apple could figure out how to fab. And it's not like they don't have any capital reserves.

opengrass•16 minutes ago

Can't even find a ddr2 sodimm that's not a ripoff.

refulgentis•14 minutes ago

"So much so that I heard Samsung’s making more money now with memory than Nvidia’s making with their processors."

I loved Asymco during the Apple 2010s run up, but this, inter alia things mentioned in other comments, should give the reader pause and evaluate how much of this is general knowledge x handwaving x vibes versus a practical ground floor understanding in 2026.

christkv•about 1 hour ago

Our problem is lack of competition

SoftTalker•18 minutes ago

High prices for RAM should attract competition.

pixl97•2 minutes ago

In general, no.

It takes billions to tens of billions to setup a fab. It also takes years to get it working. Then when you add in the IP for memory, it pretty much ain't happening.

All the RAM monopoly has to do is wait 3 days before you're producing and drop the price and you're ruined. Meanwhile they've built up a battle chest of hundreds of billions in profits.

China might be the only competition we see come out of this, but only because they are playing the long game and have trillions of US dollars to play the game with.

andrepd•2 minutes ago

Real life is not SimCity, you can't just plonk more RAM factories like that. It takes an ungodly amount of capital investment, many years before you see a cent in return, plus there's only a couple firms worldwide that can do it in the first place.

The great memory panic of 2026 – Asymco

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