> it's a short-term economic quirk

Not with the memory cartel that exists right now. They're more than happy to keep things exactly as they are, with lawsuits flying [1].

[1] https://www.rainintelligence.com/blog/dram-price-fixing-laws...

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briandw a day ago | parent [-]

Fabs take a long time to build. The price will come down once the new fabs come on line. It’s expensive because there isn’t enough of it. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s supply and demand. We’ve see this boom and bust cycle again and again.

	▲	piva00 a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This cycle might need more competitors, not only more fabs. It's in the interest of three companies to keep supply constrained to raise prices, and they act as a cartel so until the cartel breaks or a competitor grows large enough to have fabs that can make a dent in the demand we will keep seeing high prices. For a relevant competitor to show up takes much longer than building a fab (which is already a long enough endeavour). I'm not that hopeful the price for RAM and other PC parts will come down in any meaningful way for the next 3-5 years.
	▲	dogleash 14 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> It’s not a conspiracy Why does everyone play the game where everything ought to be assumed above-board until someone painstakingly proves otherwise. > To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy between July 1, 1998, and June 15, 2002, including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing We are not the courts. The most reasonable and truth based position is operating with a fuzzy impression that most businesses are substantially more dodgy than their carefully manufactured PR releases are meant to portray themselves as. And in this case, that includes acknowledging that a literal criminal conspiracy in well within the realm of possibility.