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"This is quite controversial and sounds more than a little conspiracy theory-esque." Maybe so - but about 90% of the world economy competes this way. People a

"This is quite controversial and sounds more than a little conspiracy theory-esque." Maybe so - but about 90% of the world economy competes this way. People are not stupid. 'Competing on price' is a dumb thing to do in an oligarchy, because it's effectively handing surpluses to another part of the value chain. Every industry CEO knows how this game is played, and they definitely play it - there's no explicit collusion needed - it just happens naturally when there are 'reasonably intelligent actors acting in self interest within a market oligarchy'. 'Dumping' to exterminate competition is a very common tactic, used throughout history. It takes a lot of disruption to change institutional dynamics. I can't speak for the facts in this situation - I have no idea if those allegations are true or not, but they seem reasonable, I wouldn't be surprised if they are valid statements. "My gut tells me there is more to it than politics and capitalism." - that's usually all it ever is :)

simonhamp 10y ago
If that's the case it does leave the door wide open to a technological alternative. My point is that greed and self-interest are not the only tent poles in this situation - which I fully appreciate are so common. The technical aspect of DRAM's performance and configuration is clearly another, otherwise the industry would have moved on. This suggests either: 1) a wider circle of collusion, with other manufacturers in the back pockets to lock in the environment ripe for an oligarchy, especially preferential if the market is expecting to disappear (a better option is primed to surface); or, 2) simply that nothing beats DRAM at the moment so we're stuck with this until someone intentionally sacrifices themselves simply in order to drive down the price. I can't see that happening, of course. What's more likely, IMHO, is that research and development into other approaches is proving fruitful and the companies who have already invested heavily in the status quo are merely fixing their prices to maintain healthy balance sheets/market cap while they phase in the next-gen tech.

simonhamp 10y ago

If that's the case it does leave the door wide open to a technological alternative. My point is that greed and self-interest are not the only tent poles in this situation - which I fully appreciate are so common. The technical aspect of DRAM's performance and configuration is clearly another, otherwise the industry would have moved on. This suggests either: 1) a wider circle of collusion, with other manufacturers in the back pockets to lock in the environment ripe for an oligarchy, especially preferential if the market is expecting to disappear (a better option is primed to surface); or, 2) simply that nothing beats DRAM at the moment so we're stuck with this until someone intentionally sacrifices themselves simply in order to drive down the price. I can't see that happening, of course. What's more likely, IMHO, is that research and development into other approaches is proving fruitful and the companies who have already invested heavily in the status quo are merely fixing their prices to maintain healthy balance sheets/market cap while they phase in the next-gen tech.