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I don't really understand this dooming. All market forecasters, memory bulk purchasers and the memory producers themselves have stated multiple times, unequivoc

by jorvi 1mo ago

I don't really understand this dooming. All market forecasters, memory bulk purchasers and the memory producers themselves have stated multiple times, unequivocally that the shortage will get worse in 2027 and then as new fabs come online the shortage will taper off as 2028 progresses. We've been through.. 4? 5? memory boom-bust-boom cycles already. Nothing is pointing to this one being any different, aside it probably becoming the mother of all busts since AI isn't adding much productivity and as businesses realize this, they'll stop paying top dollar for access meaning AI vendors cancel all their reserved fab capacity. The fabs already exist at that point so it's less of a loss for the memory fabs to crank out memory chips and have the RAM OEMs sell them at bargain bin prices. No pseudo-cartel pricing possible either with CMXT becoming a major player. $50 for 32GB-64GB of DDR5 in 2029 here we come babyy

wuschel 1mo ago
> AI isn't adding much productivity Would love to know where this comes from. I am not sure about that. Could you point to data/anecdata?
- throwaway85825 1mo ago
  https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-layoffs-study/ https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-la... There's been a few studies. Most find productivity gain from 'AI' to be negligible.
  - ThePhysicist 1mo ago
    Seems hard to believe, I mean I'm not an AI absolutist but as a programmer it allows me to automate simple things like writing small patches or config changes in a matter of minutes where before I would have invested hours, so hard to believe that it won't at least bump productivity up by 20-60 % overall, it's also tremendously better at finding relevant content and curating it than me so that's another time saver unrelated to programming but relevant for any type of knowledge work. Friends in research and medecine and law also tell me that AI has drastically accelerated their rate of processing and ingesting any type of information and helped them to automate aspects of their jobs. So not sure but negligible isn't the word I would use here.
    - swiftcoder 1mo ago
      > it allows me to automate simple things like writing small patches or config changes in a matter of minutes where before I would have invested hours One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? Very few orgs I've worked in have actually been limited by the speed of programmers writing code. Usually it's communication overhead and management processes eating up most of the bandwidth - and those tend to expand to absorb any additional bandwidth.
      - ThePhysicist 1mo ago
        I mean I can deliver the same software in one month that I delivered in maybe 3 months before and for many things I don't need a dedicated frontend developer, designer or writer anymore. So for me it's the case!
        swiftcoder 1mo ago
        > mean I can deliver the same software in one month that I delivered in maybe 3 months before Right, but are you delivering 3x more software now, and more importantly, are you selling 3x more software now?
      - jr3592 1mo ago
        > One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based sense? Sure, I might only work 5 hours in a week instead of 40, so my net production is the same, but my rate of productivity was certainly much higher.
        NateEag 1mo ago
  - bloppe 1mo ago
    Ask any solo founder and they will have a very different story https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/27/america-has-become-an-entrepreneurs-paradise?giftId=YzEzNDNlZDUtNjA4ZS00NjY1LWFkNTMtZDhhN2I2YzNjOTJi&utm_campaign=gifted_article https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/27/america-has-be...
T-A 1mo ago
https://qz.com/sk-hynix-ceo-memory-shortage-2027-warning-071326 https://qz.com/sk-hynix-ceo-memory-shortage-2027-warning-071...
- kvirani 1mo ago
  Aside: I used to love reading qz. Anyone remember when it was a chat/imessage style mobile app? The news was super short and quirky. Then they sold out and most recently literally sold out to this software company from my neck of the woods. Every single article now feels like it's written by an LLM optimized to write like a crypto/AI bro. I used to use it daily and now not at all.
vlyan 1mo ago
>I don't really understand this dooming. no one remembers the last time things got better rather than worse. shitcoin-driven scarcity seamlessly transitioned into COVID-driven scarcity and now into hyperscaler-driven scarcity. the chipmakers' cabal decided to meet increased demand with four digit margins rather than expanding production.
- Xeoncross 1mo ago
  Some of us do. In 2011 Thailand floods that destroyed major HDD manufacturing capacity and drives were really expensive. It's Deja vu for NVMe and SSD drives this time as prices are way up there.
  - hedora 1mo ago
    I had to buy a replacement HDD recently. They’re also stupid expensive.
rainsford 1mo ago
I don't remember any previous price increase this significant or sustained. Relevant to this thread, I don't ever remember major computer companies like Apple having to significantly jack up their prices because hardware costs had gone up so significantly and stayed there.

by jorvi 1mo ago

wuschel 1mo ago

> AI isn't adding much productivity Would love to know where this comes from. I am not sure about that. Could you point to data/anecdata?

throwaway85825 1mo ago
https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-layoffs-study/ https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-la... There's been a few studies. Most find productivity gain from 'AI' to be negligible.
- ThePhysicist 1mo ago
  Seems hard to believe, I mean I'm not an AI absolutist but as a programmer it allows me to automate simple things like writing small patches or config changes in a matter of minutes where before I would have invested hours, so hard to believe that it won't at least bump productivity up by 20-60 % overall, it's also tremendously better at finding relevant content and curating it than me so that's another time saver unrelated to programming but relevant for any type of knowledge work. Friends in research and medecine and law also tell me that AI has drastically accelerated their rate of processing and ingesting any type of information and helped them to automate aspects of their jobs. So not sure but negligible isn't the word I would use here.
  - swiftcoder 1mo ago
    > it allows me to automate simple things like writing small patches or config changes in a matter of minutes where before I would have invested hours One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? Very few orgs I've worked in have actually been limited by the speed of programmers writing code. Usually it's communication overhead and management processes eating up most of the bandwidth - and those tend to expand to absorb any additional bandwidth.
    - ThePhysicist 1mo ago
      I mean I can deliver the same software in one month that I delivered in maybe 3 months before and for many things I don't need a dedicated frontend developer, designer or writer anymore. So for me it's the case!
      - swiftcoder 1mo ago
        > mean I can deliver the same software in one month that I delivered in maybe 3 months before Right, but are you delivering 3x more software now, and more importantly, are you selling 3x more software now?
    - jr3592 1mo ago
      > One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based sense? Sure, I might only work 5 hours in a week instead of 40, so my net production is the same, but my rate of productivity was certainly much higher.
      - NateEag 1mo ago
- bloppe 1mo ago
  Ask any solo founder and they will have a very different story https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/27/america-has-become-an-entrepreneurs-paradise?giftId=YzEzNDNlZDUtNjA4ZS00NjY1LWFkNTMtZDhhN2I2YzNjOTJi&utm_campaign=gifted_article https://www.economist.com/business/2026/07/27/america-has-be...

T-A 1mo ago

https://qz.com/sk-hynix-ceo-memory-shortage-2027-warning-071326 https://qz.com/sk-hynix-ceo-memory-shortage-2027-warning-071...

kvirani 1mo ago
Aside: I used to love reading qz. Anyone remember when it was a chat/imessage style mobile app? The news was super short and quirky. Then they sold out and most recently literally sold out to this software company from my neck of the woods. Every single article now feels like it's written by an LLM optimized to write like a crypto/AI bro. I used to use it daily and now not at all.

vlyan 1mo ago

>I don't really understand this dooming. no one remembers the last time things got better rather than worse. shitcoin-driven scarcity seamlessly transitioned into COVID-driven scarcity and now into hyperscaler-driven scarcity. the chipmakers' cabal decided to meet increased demand with four digit margins rather than expanding production.

Xeoncross 1mo ago
Some of us do. In 2011 Thailand floods that destroyed major HDD manufacturing capacity and drives were really expensive. It's Deja vu for NVMe and SSD drives this time as prices are way up there.
- hedora 1mo ago
  I had to buy a replacement HDD recently. They’re also stupid expensive.

rainsford 1mo ago

I don't remember any previous price increase this significant or sustained. Relevant to this thread, I don't ever remember major computer companies like Apple having to significantly jack up their prices because hardware costs had gone up so significantly and stayed there.