6 ms·
RAM prices are forcing companies to choose higher prices, worse specs, or both
- toasty228 5mo agoWe squeezed everything we could squeeze over the last decades, getting better products / quality of life (in the west at least). Now that there is almost no one left to abuse (ie people on the other side of the planet willing to work for pennies) we'll have to get by with shittier products, more working hours, later retirement, worse public services, etc. Many product segments peaked and the only way left to extract more money from us is to either lower the quality so that it's cheaper to make/break faster or subscriptions/ads.
- ButyTh0 5mo agoWhy do we have to get by as you say? On whose command? Why do we always act like there's an immutable social obligation to march right along believing the prior generations had freedom to start marching in that direction, but we are forever locked in to such a direction. You know all the people that made those choices are dying and future generations have zero obligation to carry on linearly from where they left off? Women would not have the right to vote. We'd all be speaking Latin. Two things that would remain true if society of the living was tightly coupled to exactly how the past worked.
- tonyedgecombe 5mo agoThis is a valid point but I’m struggling to understand what it has to do with the gp comment. The reality is the West has been leaning on cheap labour for decades. That can’t continue as the rest of the world is catching up. This is a good thing even though it will be painful for people used to consuming cheap goods from Asia and other parts of the world.
- at-fates-hands 5mo ago>> That can’t continue as the rest of the world is catching up. This has already been happening quietly in several industries. I remember many years ago when I was working in a bike shop (early aughts) and the Specialized engineer was talking about how Taiwan used to be the brunt of the jokes in the bike world for decades. He went on a rather long rant about how over that same time, they had essentially dumped billions into becoming a technological behemoth when it came to bike manufacturing. Their factories were so far advanced, and their engineers were so highly qualified, that many bike companies (including Specialized) were moving their manufacturing back to states because it had become too expensive to continue using the Taiwan factories.
- ButyTh0 5mo agoYour comment is devoid of content, of substance. Just more parroting of obligations that do not exist. You're not struggling to understand my comment. You're struggling to think altogether when your argument is "well because random political choice in 1979, we must today in 2026..." type reductive, functional illiteracy. But ok; we must coddle the past to satiate some. Well, debt jubilees are things humans have done before. Wipe the ledger and start counting again. What is grandpa going to do? Rise from the grave?
- irishcoffee 5mo ago> What is grandpa going to do? Rise from the grave? If he did, he'd jump right back in
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- beepbooptheory 5mo agoAs an obscure 19th century theorist once said, history does not walk on its head. That is, it is not ideas or sentiment that make the difference, but processes and the actually existing relations among people. If you don't have the guts to pick a side, if you remain at the level of just disciplining sentiment, if you can't even say what you mean, then you are no better than a swindling preacher--you are part of the problem you are nominally fighting against. Or is this just dead internet?
- tonyedgecombe 5mo ago> Just more parroting of obligations that do not exist. What obligations did I mention? You seem to want to say something whether it has any relation to the parent comments or not.
- ButyTh0 5mo agoThere's the obligation to validate your expectations. When in reality we're all off the hook caring you even exist.
- kakacik 5mo agoYou don't have to do anything, nobody cares about individuals when you have 8 billions. The masses, on average, want cheap simple fun, cheap stuff and so on. Market responds. Good luck trying to change that. Sure, there is some market manipulation, ads are the best example (how can any adult with even a smidge of self-respect accept any ads in any form is beyond me, thats mind slavery 101) but since forever masses wanted bread and games more than literally anything. All those companies making high quality expensive products that lasted decades? Barring tiny exceptions, they either went down with quality (less control, move to china etc) or went bankrupt. Parent is right in 1 aspect - if we elevate whole world to similar income levels, the income of previously-rich countries will have much less purchasing power, can't escape simple numbers. But who cared in the past about slave kids in sweat shops, right, they didn't have the right skin color, passport or religion to worry about.
- ButyTh0 5mo ago"Good luck going to the moon!" "It's impossible." They said. "Simple" numbers generated by Machiavellian computation given the economy. So it turns out that difficult computation and going to the moon are possible. Problem you asserted as in the way is solved.
- pjc50 5mo agoThe original comment has conflated every ill into "have to", combined with political fatalism. Not unreasonable given the way things have turned out, but yes it's not inevitable either. It's just the direction of travel that the majority chose. Certain "have to" are imposed by the physical world. The world will have to use less oil in 2026 than in 2025, because production has been so heavily impacted by the war. What happens beyond that .. well, only a fairly small number of people get to make that decision. Next US presidential election is in 2028.
- pclowes 5mo agoAlmost every global graph tells the opposite story. There are far fewer people in poverty. There are much better average outcomes on basically every metric you can imagine. Almost all directly attributed to global commerce
- rexpop 5mo agoDespite decades of expanding global commerce and industrialization in the developing world, the data shows that extreme income inequality between nations has remained stubbornly entrenched, and between-country inequalities still account for an overwhelming ~80% of total world income inequality. By the end of the twentieth century, these decades of development and industrialization had primarily succeeded in consolidating world inequalities in income and resource use, while accelerating environmental degradation to unprecedented levels. When corporations relocate manufacturing to the imperial periphery, they successfully export the social contradictions of mass production (like class conflict and labor unrest), but they do not relocate the wealth that historically allowed high-wage countries to afford social safety nets and high living standards.
- jvandreae 5mo ago> they successfully export the social contradictions of mass production Because the West used to have tons of manufacturing and unusually large amounts of social unrest? Shitholes are gonna shithole. No one is stopping them from being the next South Korea or Singapore (if they really wanted it, lol) except themselves.
- rexpop 5mo ago> Shitholes are gonna shithole. Wow, brilliant insight. Yes, the US used to have tons of manufacturing and unusually large amounts of social unrest. Is that your only question?
- pclowes 5mo agoThen why are global living standards rising rapidly? I also don’t think inequality is intrinsically bad. Depending on type and timeframe it may even be good. Especially if the inequality is increasing while everyone is also doing better than they previously were. (note that internal US inequality is actually shrinking) A 10% increase on a larger base will produce more inequality than a 20% increase on a smaller base. However, I don’t think the smaller base person would prefer neither of them get an increase.
- armchairhacker 5mo agoBullshit jobs (and unnecessary in-office), material waste (food, clothes, etc.), culture warring...we have much more to squeeze.
- rexpop 5mo agoThe dynamic is not a straightforward "race to the bottom" that simply runs out of victims, but rather a cyclical process that continually recreates working-class resistance and shifts capital into entirely new industries. Maybe it seems like this strategy leads to a permanent decline in global labor power, but history shows a different pattern: "where capital goes, conflict goes". Relocating capital to exploit cheap labor does not permanently resolve crises of profitability; it merely reschedules them in time and space. By moving to new regions, multinational capital inevitably creates and strengthens entirely new industrial working classes in those areas. Conversely (complementarily) when an industry becomes too crowded and profits are squeezed, capitalists do not just cut corners; they rely on what Beverly Silver terms the product fix—shifting capital entirely out of mature, highly competitive sectors into new, innovative, and more profitable industries. Historically, the epicenter of capitalist accumulation (and subsequent labor unrest) shifted from textiles in the 19th century to automobiles in the 20th century. In the first decades of this century, capital shifted toward semiconductors, the "education industry," and producer services (like finance, telecommunications, and consulting). Because a product fix involves withdrawing capital from an established industry, it usually brings about mass layoffs, deindustrialization, and the breaking of existing social compacts. In response, the workers who previously benefited from those compacts have, historically, risen up to protect their jobs, pensions, and established ways of life. Unfortunately, they are often doomed by their diminishing economic leverage.
- lccerina 5mo agoAnd then Google is moving at full speed to lock-up the whole Android experience (bootloaders, OS, app store, etc.) so that even tech-savvy consumers are forced to get new, crappier devices when the old ones start slowing down. Enshittification at its highest level
- Qem 5mo agoWait until Shrinkflation meets AIflation, where most services once mediated by humans are taken over by dumb, error-prone, allucinating AI, with no possibility of recourse.
- lostmsu 5mo ago> , allucinating AI Oh, the irony
- rootusrootus 5mo agoMaybe speling mistakes will become more common, as a signal of non-AI content. For a while, at least.
- dangus 5mo agoWe can see this with the Lenovo Legion 2026 models. They literally perform worse than the 2025 models and cost more. Not only that, the build quality was cut for 2026. I know Apple is escaping it due to their large contracts but I’m honestly not sure how at this point. They must have pre-purchased multiple years of memory or otherwise have a really insane contract. But what’s puzzling about that is, why don’t other manufacturers have the same kind of deals? It’s not like Lenovo is a low volume supplier. Obviously, the iPhone sells in volume unmatched by other devices. But still…I’d have to ask why other high-volume brands like Samsung have wildly expensive laptops. It just seems like the other companies are asleep at the wheel and don’t have any passion for their strategy, to the point where a tiny company like Framework is overperforming just by caring a little bit. Sure, they can’t beat Apple on raw value but they at least they put together a laptop with a respectable trackpad and a CNC body. Where is volume leader Lenovo?
- prepend 5mo agoThis has always been my question of why don’t companies just directly emulate Apple. If lenovo is buying a billion chips a year, why can’t they lock in like Apple?
- entropicdrifter 5mo agoBecause Apple has the capital to take a loss on hardware indefinitely due to the App Store being their primary source of revenue?
- JSR_FDED 5mo agoThe App Store is in no way Apple’s primary source of revenue. Apple also makes healthy margins on its hardware products.
- dangus 5mo agoBut if you read their actual financial reports they have never indicated in any way that their hardware is a loss leader. They disclose this information publicly since they are publicly traded. Yes, the services revenue is higher than Macs and iPads combined and is at a higher profit margin, but hardware also makes a lot of money. Apple’s only structural advantage should be their custom silicon, but I don’t think that’s a cost advantage as much as it’s a performance and battery life advantage. Apple is still buying huge dies from TSMC and designing them custom themselves which is not cheap. Lenovo shares the cost of designing an Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm chip with dozens of OEMs. Same deal with software: I wouldn’t be surprised if macOS costs more per unit for Apple than Windows costs for Lenovo considering all the employees Apple hires directly to develop it. Apple in theory should be paying a pretty similar amount of money to make the rest of their systems. They don’t make camera sensors, displays, keyboards, DRAM chips, or anything else themselves.
- BirAdam 5mo agoShrinkflation is the diminution in product quality and/or volume to resist raising prices due to inflationary pressure. This has been happening in the USA since roughly 2001. Gadgets largely improved anyway though the market transitioned from metal and wood casings to brittle plastics, and there were other sacrifices made. This, however, isn’t shrinkflation. This is supply chain, demand, and uncertainty.
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo agoIt’s partially that the value of the dollar has been diluted a lot over the decades, and people are in denial about it. Earning 100k is no longer „a good salary“.
- bluGill 5mo ago100k is still a good salary. However is used to be a great salary, and most people are not in touch with how inflation has changed the value.
- cyanydeez 5mo agoOK, every time I see a comment about income on the internet, I have to assume that the person commenting has zero IQ if they mention nothing about COL. The same happens when someone mentions something about the Average income as opposed to the median income. The average income is meaningless if the top 1% keep going up while the rest of the system stays the same. The average would look like people are earning more money when they're not. Same thing with Market economics and the price of items. If I got a choice to sell a boner pill for $1 to a million people and $1 million to one person, those are equal value propositions. So whenever a corporation raises prices, they don't care how many customers they cut off as long as the remaining ones are whales. That's particularly sharp with all the AI costs being shoved into the pipe. So, that is to say, you really shouldn't just produce a single number about anything and treat it as some benchmark across the world.
- saltyoldman 5mo agoTechnically even an income of 50k is really high for a person that just needs to pay property taxes and food (house is paid off for example). And if they live in Missouri, they are probably reaching "upper middle" especially if they already have savings.
- havaloc 5mo agoThe MacBook Neo proves that gadget "shrinkflation" is largely a choice. I own an Neo and I continue to marvel at how capable, nice, and yet inexpensive it was.
- functionmouse 5mo agoYou have to keep in mind, the less capable you are with computers, the more computer you need. You might get by just fine on 8 GB, but Grandma, with her three anti-malware suites, two active malware infections, corporate spyware, and fake version of Google Chrome which reports all browsing usage to the Neilsen corporation, is going to slow to a crawl, at best, even on 16gb. Normal people computers are different than yours or mine.
- sterwill 5mo agoHow does grandma install all of that on macOS?
- jfrbfbreudh 5mo agoYes, we are vastly superior with our enormous brains.
- albert_e 5mo agoIf a brand decides to release a budget version of their expensive product with a value-for-money proposition ... that is not shrinkflation IMO. (whether that value-for-money proposition is mere marketing hype or well received and is closer to reality ... is secondary) If seemingly the "same" product -- in this example say 'MacBook Pro' base model for current year -- delivers less goodness, less value compared to its price year-on-year. If the price appears to stay more or less the same but the product is made weaker in service of higher margins for the seller. THAT would typically qualify as shrinkflation ... in my understanding. This is more objectively measurable in comsumer goods where you can see the packaging being tinkered with over time so consumer thinks they are getting the same SKU but this year's packaging has less of the product tghan last year's, at similar price point so it doesnt register as price inflation.
- pclowes 5mo agoRAM prices experiencing a spike due to a demand shock is not shrinkflation. Its a single COGS line item not a broad increase across all line items. Note: some single item shocks can lead to broad inflation (eg: oil) but that effect takes awhile to play out.
- andor 5mo agoThe RAM/SSD price spikes are not shrinkflation, but the article gives examples of shrinkflation happening due to it: * Google's upcoming folding phone is going to have less RAM than the current model. * Motorola has both increased the price on their Razr flip phone and downsized the minimum storage * Sony reduced storage on the PS5 Slim ...
- flutas 5mo agoAll of those could also be classified as "they learned consumers didn't need that much."
- ssl-3 5mo agoI see. So when the tub of ice cream decreases in size from 64 ounces to 60, 56, 52, and finally 48 ounces while the price stays the same (or even goes up), then: That's not necessarily shrinkflation; that might instead be a result of having learned that consumers didn't need so much ice cream.
- bell-cot 5mo agoThere's nothing "finally" about 48 oz. Some brands are edging smaller. What I've noticed is 32oz. cartons gaining prominence in grocery stores, while the 48's seem to be slowly getting phased out.
- ssl-3 5mo agoWe used to have quarts of ice cream available. It worked. I just want to buy it in half-gallon sizes again. I don't care if it costs more :)
- JSR_FDED 5mo agoThe article is wrong with their Apple example. The cheapest Mac mini with the smallest amount of RAM is no longer available, but the next larger config is available at the same unchanged price point.
- dawnerd 5mo ago"is available" assuming you can find one in stock.
- zemo 5mo agotech peaked at the PS Vita and I am not joking
- LaurensBER 5mo agoAs much as I love my Vita having access to Chinese handhelds with decent screens that can emulate almost everything under the sun (including PC, Switch and some Vita!) is pretty damn awesome!
- throwaway5752 5mo agoCrazy suggestion - maybe there is some space for a more efficient compute software / device combination ecosystem and companies. I don't really need or even want the AI features being pushed on my devices. I don't want to pay for ever more absurd camera specs on phones. I don't need 8k or even 4k displays on small devices. I don't need or want browser security container features to safely run and render obnoxious adds - I just want them suppressed. I don't need 4k streams or want to pay for the bandwidth. We actually don't need all the ram. Everyone was fine in 2010. The devices were fine, the internet was productive. We have all just seriously fucked up in the software and hardware space. We are super-sizing devices and software just as surely as the car industry has done in massive pickups and SUVs and the food industry has done with portion sizing.
- jmyeet 5mo agoSo I randomly ended up buying a lot of computer gear last year because I killed a perfectly fine 4 year old PC and couldn't decide what I wanted to replace it. I thought at the time "this is an expensive mistake" but you look at the prices I paid for parts a year ago and it's mind-blowing eg: - 4TB Samsung Pro 990 SSD for $150 (now $940) - 64GB DDR kit for a laptop $180 (now $700) - 64GB DDR5 CL30 kit for a desktop $200 (now $950) - 9800X3D/5070Ti PC $1800 - 2TB Samsung Pro 990 $95 I think? I honestly don't even remember why I bought this It's really depressing now. Normally at this point in the NViida product cycle we'd be expected a 50x0 Super series. I think it's all but confirmed we won't see those until next year. I think the 50x0 series will last a lot longer than the 40x0 series. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens when this hits phone makers who also need RAM. There certainly won't be a RAM increase this year and there'll likely be a price bump. Apple may be able to absorb this to some degree because of anyone I expect them to have long term contracts. Still, Apple has temporarily delisted the base 16GB Mac Mini and removed the 512GB Mac Studio so they aren't unaffected. But I think this SSD/RAM price hike has basically killed the Steam Machine, which is sad. Valve obviously didn't lock in long-term contracts before announcing it. Woops. The Steam Deck is also a hard find as a result. We've seen an almost unprecedented price hike on the PS5, which is an almost 6 year old console at this point. I wouldn't exxpect a PS6 before 2028 at the earliest. We've had RAM price spikes before, usually because of supply crunches (eg years ago I seem to remember a fire taking out one of the major suppliers). I honestly don't expect any of this to get better until we have an increasingly likely global recession and the AI bubble pops. OpenAI and Anthropic may not be able to cash out in time to avoid all this.
- beAbU 5mo agoI bough a unifi access point on the ubiquiti store today, and on checkout they slapped me with a €5 "memory surcharge" on checkout.
- rsync 5mo agoAnecdote: The ‘zfs send’ capable accounts at rsync.net have always had a 5TB minimum size because they require a full blown virtual machine with resource guarantees and IP address, etc. We just changed that minimum to 10TB last week and it was specifically the RAM prices that forced us to re-calculate that value proposition.
- pzo 5mo agoI really hope we will have some innovation with LLM that would remove such demand for RAM. Any ideas what is more likely? ASIC LLM? inference inside SSD? bigger 1-bit trained models? better MoE so we don't have to load all experts?
- m4rtink 5mo agoBubble popping, useless AI hardware sold off to creditors and scrapped to RAM sticks in SSDs for actual real world use case ? And eventually maybe later in a few years some actually useful and profitable real use cases for the current LLM generation are found. Alternatively "AI" gets such a bad name regular people will go and burn it all down as long as it has "AI" even just in the name.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5mo agoShrinkflation is when a product for the same price gives you less while pretending to be the same amount, e.g. get 450g of pasta per pack instead of 500, same price, sold in the same boxes. This is the same product at 5x the price. It sucks but it's not shrinkflation
- estimator7292 5mo agoMy company has tens of thousands of people on a waitlist for our new product. We had planned to ship this year, but we simply can't get enough memory at any price. Even if we cut the installed memory to bare minimum functional requirements, the unit cost goes up by a few hundred dollars and functionality is drastically reduced. So, we can't ship. This could kill our business. Thanks, Sam.