Thread

1. ocd · 1790861971 · focus · HN ↗

   I'm not a business guy, but I think I would be very worried if I created any opening (even on the very long term) for competition to justify itself being built up to meet demand (or national security requirements of other countries) on an industry I mostly control, because I prioritized extremely high prices for a few years that might have the effect of changing the arithmetic for potential competitors that wouldn't have done it before.

   It makes me consider whether there would be retaliation in later years against the US intellectual property system in countries other than China. While RAM is a tangible product, the areas it serves aren't really.

   1. wewewedxfgdf · 1790862827 · focus · HN ↗

      There is 3 companies that make memory - they ALL want to keep memory prices high for as long as possible.

      1. adrian_b · 1790864677 · focus · HN ↗

         For now, there are only 3 that matter, but the reason is purely because the US government has sabotaged their competition as soon as it became apparent that the incumbents would lose market share.

         Without what the US government did and still does, the prices of memory would have never increased so much and all the world would not have been forced to pay so much for memory.

         1. adrian_b · 1790867921 · focus · HN ↗

            I assume that some Americans have downvoted what I have written, but this is a fact that is true beyond any reasonable doubt.

            A few years ago, the US government has added the Chinese vendors of DRAM and of flash memory on their sanctioned entity list exactly at the time when Apple and other major computer manufacturers were evaluating the replacement of products from Micron and the like with the Chinese alternatives. This was prevented by the "sanctions".

            There is absolutely no doubt that the so-called sanctions did not have any other purpose than removing the competition for Micron.

            The official reason is absolutely ridiculous, i.e. that they are among the companies that provide products to the Chinese military.

            If that would have been the reason, then 100% of all existing Chinese companies from any domain of activity would have to be put on the "sanctioned entity" list, because any of them would sell to the military of their country, if given an opportunity, like all companies from USA will provide products and services to the US military, given the opportunity.

            While the Chinese memory makers will obviously also sell to the military, almost all their production goes into consumer products, like smartphones and laptops, which are the main products affected by the US "sanctions" (which are no true sanctions, because true sanctions against China would have been accompanied and conditioned by some political requests, which is not the case for any of the US "sanctions").

            There is also no doubt that without the US "sanctions" the Chinese memory makers would have bought the latest semiconductor manufacturing equipment and they would have had the production capacity to flood the market with their products when Micron, Samsung and Hynix stopped providing enough memory for anyone who is not among their top 5 customers.

            Thus their is no doubt that the US government has stolen a lot of money from my own pocket when I was forced to update a couple of old computers this year, by artificially restricting the amount of memory that is produced and preventing competition in this market.

            As I see it, any US citizen who supports the actions of their government to restrict the production around the world of various kinds of goods and to prevent competition in various global markets, actions that have increased the prices of many kinds of consumer products in all countries, is an accomplice to theft from a very large number of people all over the world, who are forced to pay inflated prices for such products, resulting in money that goes from many countries into the pockets of the shareholders of a few big transnational companies, including Qualcomm, Micron, Samsung and Hynix.

            1. tzs · 1790874135 · focus · HN ↗

               > I assume that some Americans have downvoted what I have written, but this is a fact that is true beyond any reasonable doubt.

               I would guess that the reason for any downvotes is that even if what you wrote is completely true it isn't really relevant, because the current problem is not lack of competition. The current problem is a huge increase in demand over a short time.

               Even if there were no restrictions on China and they had latest generation fabs, they would not have had latest generation fabs just sitting around idle. They would be unable to meet the current increased demand for exactly the same reason everybody else can't.

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