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> Had Samsung known SK Hynix was about to commit a similar chunk of supply — or vice-versa — the pricing and terms would have likely been different Wouldn't th
by ctoth 10mo ago
> Had Samsung known SK Hynix was about to commit a similar chunk of supply — or vice-versa — the pricing and terms would have likely been different
Wouldn't this be ... collusion?
Implicitly arguing that the memory oligopoly should have been coordinating is ... quite something.
OpenAI may well be doing something anticompetitive by cornering supply to foreclose competitors, but saying "they tricked the suppliers into not colluding!" is certainly a take you can have I guess.
- amenaijp 10mo agoThey have, rather famously, been caught doing financial shenanigans before. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal
- walterbell 10mo agoA competitive auction would not be collusion.
- zarzavat 10mo agoNo, it's not collusion to ask for more money from OpenAI if you hear that they are trying to buy 40% of the world's supply. Increased demand leads to higher prices, that's normal. OpenAI, by doing simultaneous deals, hid the true demand from the suppliers, thus lowering their price and raising everyone else's.
- mike_d 10mo agoWhat?? Replace DRAM with peaches or table legs and you have the exact example they give you during management training to explain implicit collusion.
- zarzavat 10mo agoThat's when you raise prices without a change in the market conditions. OpenAI is creating more demand, therefore the price must go up, if it didn't then there'd be shortages.
- mike_d 10mo agoI can see how it can be confusing. If you know demand will go up because Microsoft announced that each new Xbox will have 2TB of RAM, that is perfectly fine. Or if OpenAI issues a press release that they intend to buy half the worlds RAM. If you know demand will go up because you learn the volume your customer intends to purchase from your competitor during confidential negotiations, that is not ok.
- vegabook 10mo agoA case could be made though that it is OpenAI who is operating illegally, attempting to corner the market.
- sophrosyne42 10mo agoThere is nothing suspicious or abnormal about this behavior. It is called competition. Ironically, trying to prevent this kind of behavior prevents competitiob, and is a key factor for causing monopolization
- zarzavat 10mo agoIt depends... if OpenAI bought the DRAM in order to use it, then fair play to them. If they bought the DRAM in order to stop their competitors from using it because they are falling behind, that's anticompetitive in spirit, though I'm not sure if it actually breaks any laws.
- sophrosyne42 10mo agoI don't see what's less competitive about that, although I do see how it might make zero financial sense.
- vegabook 10mo agoKnowingly attempting to buy or sell in quantities likely to move markets, for direct profit, is called manipulation and is most definitely illegal. this is true in physical markets commodity markets and financial markets. Not saying that this is what openAI is doing but it definitely merits an investigation.
- sophrosyne42 10mo agoAll quantities bought or sold on the margin will move the market. Whether it moves the market is not up to the buyer or seller; it is up to other buyers and sellers who react to that transaction and adjust their expectations. This is normal market dynamics, dynamics we should want to happen because markets adjusting to movements of big players performs a social function; you and I need to know how large movenents of resources affects our livelihoods, and this is how that can happen. There is no reason to pathologize or find suspicious these normal economic facts. Especially when it is not within the power of a big player to choose how other people react to their actions, which is all "moving markets" is. If something is suspicious and illegal about that, then it is equally suspicious that you and I seem to go along with this "market movement" by these big players and pay the new prices. Are we colluding with them? We could do with less conspiracy-minded interpretations of these things.
- sophrosyne42 10mo agoEvery normal market interaction could be described by scary monopoly-sounding words. You heard about you're friend's salary in the same industry, and ask for a higher salary next time you negotiate. You're colluding with your friend to price gouge your employer! In reality, so-called collusion is normal and unobjectionable. But when price surges happen, often due to factors outside of the seller's immediate control, people look for any reason to find an ethical dimension and find how to place blame, because this is more convenient. Things that were normal become abnormal and suspicious. It is in consumers economic self-interest to act in this way, because it often secures favors to them from various economic policies that they don't normally get when the market is "normal". This is no less a form of collusion than what sellers might do to secure their economic advantage. But a key difference for these anti "gouging" policies is that it gives consumers a special privilege and makes market pricing less able to fulfill its social functions.