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Why do you think the price of SSDs should be close to cost? As there are many consumer level producers (who all buy from a smaller set of actual producers), it

Why do you think the price of SSDs should be close to cost? As there are many consumer level producers (who all buy from a smaller set of actual producers), it may seem like the market is close to perfect competition (which would justify price=cost). But actually there are many low quality producers that frequently burn those stupid enough to buy from them. And a few high quality producers who generally sell what they advertise. So if you are trying to buy a high quality SSD, you are buying from an oligopoly that have built their brands over the years. So they can charge significantly higher than cost due to this reason. And I imagine that others can't drop their prices much lower than this price because then people get suspicious and don't buy it at all.

ggm 1y ago
> Why do you think the price of SSDs should be close to cost? Not close, but closeER and at least some evidence of tracking. That's what I'd expect if they were ubiquitous. Some goods track commodity prices closely. Shrinkflation happens when you can't easily alter the unit price, chocolate bars are a good example. Not that we pay anything like as little as the producers get: there's enough competition that putting valhrona to one side, chocolate prices reflect commodity prices. Same with fuel. Same with ROHC compliant resistors. SMD components. PCBs. Batteries, led light bulbs. DDR memory. Not SSD. There is no reason it must, this isn't the laws of physics. I just observe it doesn't. If there was more visible competition in supply of inputs, they MIGHT. But it looks like at best a duopoly or tri-opoly of inputs, and prices reflect demand a lot more. Supply isn't even close to demand, there's no surplus. Those other things are somewhat peripheral. Not saying they don't have a role, but I don't think it's fundamental. I bought 6 "patriot" P210 and they get average to poor reviews for speed and reliability.
- lazide 1y ago
  Eh, probably RAM’esque price fixing. Not that anyone is going to look too closely with all the geopolitical fuckery right now.
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    There have been reports that Micron has been doing unusual ammounts of lobbying around the time that the US government introduced trade sanctions against YMTC and Apple dropped their plans to start using them. (Though that time period also coincides with the CHIPS Act frenzy, so take with a grain of salt.)

ggm 1y ago

> Why do you think the price of SSDs should be close to cost? Not close, but closeER and at least some evidence of tracking. That's what I'd expect if they were ubiquitous. Some goods track commodity prices closely. Shrinkflation happens when you can't easily alter the unit price, chocolate bars are a good example. Not that we pay anything like as little as the producers get: there's enough competition that putting valhrona to one side, chocolate prices reflect commodity prices. Same with fuel. Same with ROHC compliant resistors. SMD components. PCBs. Batteries, led light bulbs. DDR memory. Not SSD. There is no reason it must, this isn't the laws of physics. I just observe it doesn't. If there was more visible competition in supply of inputs, they MIGHT. But it looks like at best a duopoly or tri-opoly of inputs, and prices reflect demand a lot more. Supply isn't even close to demand, there's no surplus. Those other things are somewhat peripheral. Not saying they don't have a role, but I don't think it's fundamental. I bought 6 "patriot" P210 and they get average to poor reviews for speed and reliability.

lazide 1y ago
Eh, probably RAM’esque price fixing. Not that anyone is going to look too closely with all the geopolitical fuckery right now.
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  There have been reports that Micron has been doing unusual ammounts of lobbying around the time that the US government introduced trade sanctions against YMTC and Apple dropped their plans to start using them. (Though that time period also coincides with the CHIPS Act frenzy, so take with a grain of salt.)