This quote is basically the TL;DR:

> memory suppliers have both the motive and precedent to coordinate behavior, even tacitly, in order to keep prices high. When only a handful of firms control the taps, it doesn't take a formal cartel for them to collectively benefit from constrained supply. Each firm knows that flooding the market would hurt all of their profits, so a form of unspoken coordination can occur, and this is next to impossible to prove. The backdrop of past cartels makes it hard not to be cynical when hearing that "AI demand" is solely to blame for increased prices. Whether or not any collusion is happening now, it's clear that memory companies are profiting immensely from the current crisis. After bleeding financially during the last oversupply downturn, the major DRAM makers are now seeing record-high earnings in the third quarter of 2025 thanks to the price surge, and to put it bluntly, the shortage is great for business.

▲ walterbell 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Each firm knows

In some cases, firm == family, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol

  A chaebol is a large industrial South Korean conglomerate run and controlled by an individual or family. A chaebol often consists of multiple diversified affiliates, controlled by a person or group. Several dozen large South Korean family-controlled corporate groups fall under this definition.

▲ venturecruelty 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm so excited to read the pro-monopoly take on this.

	▲	sershe 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not pro monopoly as such, but in the recently posted article on UK shipbuilding they mentioned that a major reason for it's decline was it didn't build out capital capacity after being repeatedly burned by cyclical nature of the industry, with some quote even claiming they thought they would be best positioned for the next bust explicitly. What choice do these companies have, even assuming the demand doesn't crash? They can build out and cause a glut in a few years. They can not build out and then what? Barriers to entry are high but not insurmountable; long term they'll go the way of UK shipbuilding. It might take a while, though. Also one defector building out would have massive advantage, so it doesn't seem like a stable equilibrium. See also constant bickering in the OPEC, an explicit cartel.