This phenomenon of "hardware companies are increasing their markets" is just a consequence of the fact that the memory market is now dominated by quasi-monopolies.

Decades ago, when memory production still existed in many countries, no such margin increases would have been possible.

Even now, this would not have been possible without the US government actively suppressing competition in the memory market, by sabotaging the Chinese memory producers.

The so-called "sanctions" against the Chinese memory producers have started some years ago precisely in the moment when Micron was threatened to lose market share to the Chinese producers (e.g. when Apple was considering to switch to them as providers). Based on the "Cui prodest?" principle, it is extremely likely that Micron was the entity who lobbied the US government to sabotage the Chinese memory producers, creating the environment where companies like OpenAI could successfully drive the memory prices to record levels.

> is just a consequence of the fact that the memory market is now dominated by quasi-monopolies.

And software isn't?