I can’t be more clear: specificity around predicting the future is close to impossible. There are 9 figure bets on both sides of the RAM issue, and strategic national concerns. I say that prices will go down at some point in the future for reasons highlighted already, but I have no clue when. Keep in mind what I myself have said about human ability to predict the future. You would be a fool to believe anyone’s specific estimates.

Maybe the AI money train stops after Christmas. The entire economy is fucked, but RAM is cheap.

Maybe we unlock AGI and the price sky rockets further before factories can get built.

There are just too many variables.

The real test is if someone had seen this coming, they would have made massive absurd investment returns just by buying up stock and storing it for a few months. Anyone who didn’t take advantage of that opportunity has proved that they had no real confidence in their ability to predict the future price of RAM. RAM inventory might have been one of the highest return investments possible this year. Where are all the RAM whales in Lambos who saw this coming?

As a corollary: we can say that unless you have some skin in the game and have invested a significant amount of your wealth in RAM chips, then you don’t know which way the price is going or when.

Extending that even further: people complaining about RAM prices being so high, and moaning that they bought less RAM because of it are actually signaling through action that they think that prices will go down or have leveled off. Anyone who believes that sticks of DDR5 RAM will continue the trend should be cleaning out Amazon, Best Buy and Newegg since the price will never be lower than today.

The distinct lack of serious people saying “I told ya so” with receipts, combined with the lack of people hoarding RAM to sell later is a good indirect signal that no one knows what is happening in the near term.

Bear with me:

Back at the start of our discourse, you tried to prove that a sub $500 computer can't exist by citing that B+H is selling sticks of 32gb of DDR5 for $384 while ignoring, or failing to find that they had 2 x 16 kits of Crucial branded RAM for $270 in stock when you made the claim. That deal is gone now at BH, but Best Buy has the exact same kit for $260 in stock right now (https://www.bestbuy.com/product/crucial-pro-32gb-2x16gb-ddr5...). Rather critically, the original post did NOT make any claims about the price of a 32GB RAM stick, it made a claim about the existence of a < $500 computer with 32GB of DDR5 and a Ryzen 7. I have definitively proven that multiple merchants in multiple countries can make good on that computer configuration at that price. That you CAN pay that much for RAM has nothing to do with my since proven claim about computer pricing.

You have said elsewhere that "a single entity bought more than 70% of the wafer production for the next year. That's across all types of memory modules." Based on reported industry rumors and press releases, OpenAI have made a non-binding agreement with two foundries that control 70% of the DRAM market for up to little more than half their output of raw DRAM wafers. That is a massive difference from buying 70% of the entire RAM market. Its a letter of intent for both foundries, and is very nebulous about that "up to" phrasing. Both of those deals was called a "Letter of Intent" by the foundry very specifically. If you aren't familiar, that specific phrase is typically used for a non-formalized agreement that has no legally enforceable provisions. No actual deal has been inked. I can understand how a misread happened, but not how you have such strong feelings on a story that you haven't understood the most basic details for. To summarize: not a deal in the legal/enforceable sense, not 70% of the global RAM or DRAM market, not all types of RAM, not even a firm commitment on the 40% of DRAM market from either party.

You say "I don't subscribe to Prime or pay any attention to how it's priced", but you somehow arrive on the only pricing option of the ~4 available options that undercuts what I am saying. I had to scroll to below the fold on google for "prime price" to get a single link that did not mention the lower monthly price in the search result. Even the google AI got it right. Yet, I am to give you the benefit of doubt that you have such specific, yet also profoundly limited, knowledge of the Prime program that you can cite the exact price of the yearly version of the product to prove a point, yet have no idea that a monthly subscription exists. A curiously specific ignorance.

There's more, but I'll move on.

I'm happy to accept your plea of ignorance, but it severely undercuts your arguments when you have to plea ignorance on the facts at the root of your arguments continually. It severely undercuts your plea of ignorance when every single number and fact you misquote happens to be an error in favor of your argument. People making mistakes in good faith tend not to make every single error in their own favor.

The worst part is, the position that RAM pricing will not drop has merit and is very arguable (although I don't agree given what I have seen so far). It is NOT a good thing for DRAM prices that OpenAI might have first dibs on a sizable minority of next years DRAM production. It is also not at all a given that that will be true. Continually using deceptively cherry picked, or outright wrong, numbers and info means that this conversation won't continue. I must insist on basing arguments in fact.

Thanks for the back and forth, for what it's worth. In any case, its always enlightening to get a good peak into how different people interpret numbers and facts, and arrive at their understanding of the world.