Thread

1. shevy-java · 1789929023 · focus · HN ↗

   About 2 years ago I bought some SDRAM or something like that, DDR4 or DDR5, don't recall offhand. A few months ago I looked at the price today, and it was over 3x as high. That's just insane. Governments need to do something against this abuse system that AI amplified here.

   1. digdigdag · 1789929314 · focus · HN ↗

      > Governments need to do something against this abuse system that AI amplified here.

      Which governments, and what exactly would you want these governments to do? The demand is global. There are no levers a single government can pull to meaningfully influence the global demand without fully committing to an protectionist economic policy, in which case the U.S. doesn't have the facilities to magically pop up world class fabs overnight, and South Korea and Taiwan don't have the market demand that the U.S. generates to justify their investments in making these chips and China lacks the IP to be able to build anything comparable to Nvidia's silicon at the moment.

      No one has all the cards and no one controls all the levers.

      1. CamperBob2 · 1789929947 · focus · HN ↗

         No one has all the cards and no one controls all the levers.

         I'm as fanatical a free-market fundamentalist as you'll ever meet, but if someone were to argue that government has a role in preventing bullshit like OpenAI's unilateral 40% attack on the entire DRAM market, backed by nothing but funny money, I would have a hard time coming up with defensible counterarguments.

         1. rangestransform · 1789934837 · focus · HN ↗

            Apple used to do the same thing with TSMC’s newer process nodes, and nobody really complained because people were getting superior products. I happen to like US antitrust enforcement that considers consumer benefit primarily.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.