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Discussion (245 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
And I agreed! So… holy shit. I think we're going to see even further price increases across the industry. There already were a ton, but it can always get worse, of course.
Thank you, OpenAI. What would have we done without your attempts at monopolizing destroying the memory market.
>Just yesterday I saw people saying that Apple wouldn't increase prices until the next refresh.
That was from Gruber, a person who claimed USB-C was invented by Apple, AirPod was sold at a loss.
Generally speaking understanding of Margins, Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Hardware Business manufacturing is still very low across the internet.
I happened to buy an iPad 2 days ago, dang I got lucky. I thought they’d announce before the iPhone launch but had no idea it would be this soon.
Between the dire economy, the oil and materials crisis due to conflict, the trade wars and the tarrifs, why would anyone expect it to be otherwise?
Unfortunately, I think regulatory capture is so deep now in most places, one can hardly expect anyone to do anything about it.
The question is always: What specific regulation?
Regulation is not the magic silver bullet that some want to make it out to be.
You’re not going to solve a global supply and demand change by regulating companies to not buy too many things. The supply would go to other countries. Companies would open international subsidiaries that built the data centers in other countries. Companies would move to other countries which didn’t try to stop them from buying components on the free market.
You can’t regulate companies into keeping prices down. This is an international market. If you passed a law that said RAM had to be sold for no more than 30% higher than last year’s price, the international memory companies would laugh and stop sending RAM to that country.
> Unfortunately, I think regulatory capture is so deep now in most places, one can hardly expect anyone to do anything about it.
I think you need to broaden your understanding of how the DRAM supply chain works and which countries are involved. You can’t mandate low prices for a global commodity. You can try, but the supply will just disappear for that country.
> Anyone who’s spent any time in New York City knows that when it begins to rain, two things happen immediately: It becomes easier to buy an umbrella and it becomes harder to hail a cab. As soon as the first few drops fall, people appear on the street selling cheap umbrellas, while a lucky few pedestrians occupy all the available cabs.
http://shirky.com/2001/01/
Technically, sure, but there are jobs that require you to have a phone (at many different career points too), colleges that expect it, and more. And while there may be workarounds, they are often workarounds at someone else's expense, such as asking someone else to check the class schedule or work schedule.
So yes. You don't need to own a smart phone. And you don't need to own shoes. Both will get you (understandable) looks from general society. Both will limit what you can do. Both are somewhat understandable as having become a default, expected thing that people WILL have.
Doesn't mean people would legitimately use them enough to warrant such infrastracture demand, if they were priced according to actual costs.
So it's a distorted market.
Yet the AI labs are speculating on usage, and spending money from investments without clear revenue path.
Close down would be a good idea.
Speaking of which, what's the timeline of the RAM shortage ending? I have no sense for whether it is going to be (for example) 6 months or 3 years.
Barring unusual market forces like Taiwan invasion the timeline to ending the acute shortage seems to be mid 2028. The AI still has plenty of money to burn and is the biggest driver, but we’re also shortly before gaming consoles ought to release a new gen (although who knows whether they won’t get delayed for a while). There was even going to be a small upgrade cycle for nerds waiting for 2nm fabbed devices, same as pre-ai datacenters looking for power efficiency. Plenty of pent-up demand, too, as many people simply make do with what they have but will upgrade once the silliness stops.
If you’re looking for ssd/ram prices to go back to the low of 2024/early 2025 it probably won’t happen before China catches up, which will be a while yet. There is some build up of new capcity happening from current manufacturers but it’s significantly less than what the demand increased by.
Eventually supply and demand will get back in a better balance and we will probably see prices rise slower than inflation until adjusted for inflation prices are close to to where they were before but the actual dollar price isn’t likely to go down.
Anyone making hardware is having a rough time. Like Valve who had to release their new PC at around 40% more expensive than what they originally wanted.
Look at the AWS Prime ssds available, and it's a massive list of strange drives you've never heard of, with very few reviews available, almost all using YMTC. The prices aren't fantastic, but given that five sixths of the drive market is straight up gone, I think we need to start reviewing and hoping for the best here, fast. I really hope endurance is indeed as rated, that we aren't about to all get burned incredibly badly for using YMTC chips.
CXMT is indeed starting to get some ram out there. But I am pretty skeptical it's going to make much of a dent. They're currently single digits % of the world ram production. They need to scale a lot to make any dent, and as soon as they do, it feels like there's plenty of people ready to snatch up those supplies.
We need massive massive massive growth in availability and there's no sign that current scale up plans will be at all adequate.
We are truly entering the dark ages of personal computing.
This is one of my biggest fears of this whole thing, that personal (local) computing is going to effectively die.
I mean Micron exited the consumer market entirely. All fab capacity is going to HMB, not consumer chips. The cartel has zero desire to make consumer hardware anymore, AI/data centers are far too profitable for them. Micron just reported gross margin of 85%.
So the cartel is raking in the dough selling shovels, screwing consumers, with long term supply deals already in place, they have no need to even think about the personal computer market (or chips for anything else either, this is going to cascade into automotive and elsewhere) until at least 2028-2029.
I'm sure Microsoft is frothing at the mouth to sell people thin clients with a Windows 365 subscription, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the new XBox go all in on cloud gaming like GeForce now.
We're stuck in this situation until/unless the AI buildout slows or stops in some sort of market correction.
I’m not happy with the price increases either, but saying this is the end of personal computing or that the next step is dumb terminals for everyone is very the-sky-is-falling.
fwiw, I don't hate the thin-client model for dev work (via ssh, certainly not RDP - I've done both), but I despise the implications of _having_ to do it.
I suspect a lot of mac users are in the same place, and Apple knows it.
This has no bearing on your perception of ownership of your mobile device.
Massive pushback (lagging, accessibility issues, slow) from workers was ignored and many people quit.
Sucks, but can't say I disagree with the fresh times though. There hasn't been a compelling need to upgrade all knowledge workers every 3 years anyway. An M2 air from 2022 is still fine today and will likely continue to be fine for at least another 3 years or more.
I priced it out today. The same spec (I think) is $2,000 more expensive.
I wasn’t expecting a jump that big. I can’t justify carrying around an $8,000 laptop.
The way I approach these purchases is amortized cost over time. I do not expect prices to be lower in 2 years but if I can keep using my older hardware for longer, I am more open to absorbing the blow of the higher cost down the road.
All the people running any computer appreciate.
Want to edit a video? Pay a subscription for a Microslop Pro Max Windows $50/mo, then pay another $50 the NVidia Pro GPU add-on (the gaming version is slightly cheaper, but we can't let you use that since it's against the ToS), then another $50/mo for Adobe Premiere + $20 extra for the 4K export option. But you've already used up your monthly quota for it, so you pay another $50 for reset the limit. Then your machine doesn't have enough storage, I guess it's time to upgrade the cloud storage subscription too, that will be another $50 please.
Thank you and have a nice day!
So yes, inflation on average is nowhere near as high as in RAM prices.
Some day we will look back and think about how dumb we were to allow them to lie to us about what inflation really is
What other things have been getting cheaper in the last ~2 years?
And as it's an average of many things, it's quite easy to change which 'things' it is calculated upon to show whatever number is more convenient politically.
Used cars & trucks; butter; cheese; flour; chicken; textbooks; drugs are all down since ~2 years ago. Not an exhaustive list!
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.htm
Small tweaks to macro-economic calculations, can turn into a huge divergence very fast. A one degree error in a compass read seems small...but after a thousand miles, your destination is history.
Tis reaching (or reached) a stage where mostly everyone is blind as to where the economy actually is.
Mega private companies now hire stat firms to run such studies in-house, ignoring gov data[1]
[1] https://rsmus.com/insights/economics/the-rise-of-private-lab...
The base model 14" MacBook Pro released in 2021 was $1,999. Today, Apple raised the price of the current base model to, you guessed it, $1,999.
And of course it should go without saying that the current models are substantially better.
Edit: don't know where that $1,299 came from, Apple's announcement says $999: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/introducing-the-next-...
That's a 30% increase. Over 5.5 years, that's right about 5% per year.
So, Linux won't consume LESS unless you spend your time configuring different stuff.
I can't imagine users want to mess with this instead of buying macs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/1qqyh2z/scro...
Linux is not an operating system (as people know it). Ubuntu is, Fedora is, etc. Like you said, "install Linux" is meaningless and leads you down a rabbit hole of "what distro." Just say "Install Fedora KDE" or whatever.
But even saying "Install Fedora KDE" is going to alienate an enormous group of the general population. We can manage it, gamers can largely manage it, and someone relatively tech-adjacent can handle it. The completely non-technical person that does most of their computing on an iPhone? Not a chance in hell you're going to get them to download an ISO, flash a USB drive, and boot from it. Queue up the questions "Wtf is an ISO? I haven't had a USB drive in 10 years...what is an operating system?"
Remember that OEDC study? About 80% of the global adult population is functionally computer illiterate when it comes to solving problems or doing tasks that aren't completely on rails. 24% of adults cannot use a computer at all. An additional 14% can only do one-step, highly guided tasks like click a single link, or delete a single email. Another 29% can use a web browser or email basically but struggle with any task that requires navigation or multiple steps.
Being in tech and in tech communities its easy to assume some basic level of competency, but that level does not exist. I've experienced it first hand throughout my career in IT. Most people where I work struggle with the concept of basic file management, let alone anything more advanced than sending an email or finding a file.
Year of the Linux Desktop will never happen without mass market preinstalls as the default choice.
https://slickdeals.net/f/19653138-update-apple-price-increas...
But as soon as I heard Cook say they're planning price increases last week, I ran out and bought a 15" M5 Air 24GB/1TB for $1444 at MicroCenter.
The M6 Pro/Max MBP generation is going to be super expensive given the RAM and storage costs, brand new design, OLED, and TSMC N2 node.
Not that they will start making memory themselves, but they have bankrolled production expansions in their suppliers before in exchange for guaranteed supply.
In any case, if my guess is right, it would take years to take effect.
And if that is not true, perhaps it isn't really a commodity at all.
I’m surprised that iphones didn’t get a price raise while neo did. Neo seems like a clear market share attempt so that they can upsell on services, I would’ve expected either both of those or neither to get dinged.
Treat yoself Tim Apple!
I have three Apple TVs that are ethernet connected and form the backbone of my home's Thread network, but they have <5 apps installed and would do fine with 32gb rather than 128gb. (And in fact, they are all currently 32gb models from the previous generation where those did include ethernet.)
Absolutely awful timeline where the value of a PC goes up with time.
I can't imagine a margin that large is allowed to exist unchallenged for more than a few years.
Immense profits have proven a very endurable shield against upstarts for "big tech" so... we'll probably end up watching regulators attempt to dismantle the RAM cartel throughout the 2040s.
> Apple is a fabless manufacturer; production of the chips is outsourced to contract foundries including TSMC and Samsung.
Do they have a source for RAM that’s insulated from the global market?
but what i think they meant is framework is looking like a better deal now that macs are more expensive
Or are they also sharing the pain with the customer and partially increasing prices only?
I also wouldn’t be surprised if memory providers weren’t intimately involved, as they’ve been caught price fixing in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal
The datacenter builders and the big hosted AI models. The person you're replying to even mentions OpenAI by name.
There are two things that would prevent people from using local models - pricing and regulations. And we're seeing moves from both of those fronts lately.
Hey, Infantino was ahead of the curve! For the same price as an English MBP, you can get an American one and see the Three Lions disappoint against Panama!
I suspect that these price increases will stick around permanently (or at least for a long while).
I think this one paid off for all my other bad timings.
Edit: I paid $6,400 after taxes and the same setup is now at $9,850 before taxes. Whoa!
$500!! I mean that's not crazy surprising given price increase in the components I'm trying to buy (ram and hard drives, maybe an SSD) but damn. The M6 is probably the next laptop I'll get, I can only hope that component prices have calmed down by the time it's released but I'm not holding my breath.
Just look at what AI (in the form of LLMs) is doing to the rest of the computing industry because of throwing insurmountable levels of debt into data centers instead of researching efficient methods for running 1TN+ parameters language models locally or even to gain the same performance, intelligence equivalent without such large parameters.
It just tells you that AI is at the point where personal computing is going to price out a lot of people if it doesn't get cheaper. Until there are viable efficient methods in running 1TN+ parameter models or a smaller model performing at the equivalent or better than frontier models, we will continue to see more of this in the future.
This happened when Ethereum was a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain and then switched to an environmentally efficient method of consensus (Proof of Stake) which the demand for GPUs fell sharply afterwards.
> AI is much worse because the scale is OOM greater, but crypto/blockchain effects on the market weren't harmless either.
AI on the other hand has done the exact opposite and has little to show to make things efficient.
Instead, companies are buying up the world's supply of GPUs and building hundreds of data centers because that is the laziest way to scale up and then laying you off to pay for it all.
I have some choice words for Sam Altman for destroying the personal computing marketplace by cornering the memory market…
There is also no option for instalments and bank also refused loan as asset purchase.
Cool.
M5 Max MacBook Pro: $4,099 (up from $3,599)
M3 Ultra Mac Studio: $5,299 (up from $3,999
How can this be explained with price increases in Ram prices?
Come on Apple, don’t be so greedy. Make money but don’t bleed us.
https://lowendmac.com/1999/power-mac-g4-yikes/
I have a 350MHz model that I purchased used for $40 back in 2009.
I’ve never seen across-the-board price hikes from Apple that were not accompanied with some type of upgrade.
What do you mean "eventually"?
Samsung $1.529 T SK Hynix $1.345 T Micron $1.343 T
Is this really the future we wanted?
Did farming implements and looms make food and clothing more expensive and scarce? No, they did the opposite, making both more readily available. So your comment is a disanalogy.
In other words, we have to protect our billions of cash from burning.
They could keep the prices down, but then again for these C-suites everything should go up, right? Who cares if the market is “ready” for price jumps? Who cares when HDD, memory manufactures prioritize Sam Atmans? Heck, half-made, buggy games now starts at $80 price point.
It’s unfortunately billionaires’ world.
Apple won't get an exclusive deal to buy RAM for far less than the going rate.
I'm sure they're doing everything they can to cut their costs as well. That means even more profit. Lower costs only translates into lower prices if that results in more profit overall.