This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I can only hope that the A.I. bubble bursts in time when I need to buy a new computer.
What I'm becoming worried about now is all these corporations now realizing that they can simply supply price the average consumer out of owning electronics or any kind of compute. And locking them into renting or leasing access to data center compute and keeping the power of information further consolidated in corporate interests.
Holy cow that’s a very real danger I hadn’t thought of! The industry needs a new trend to reuse all this capacity they built, because AI will likely scale back as many startups fail to reach profit.
Renting your home computer might be the next trend, and it could be gratis at first so people get used to it. Why spy on users when you can actually own their computers?
Aren't we already seeing that though?
The vast majority of people who surf the web don't use a computer to do it. People who do belong to niches. People over a certain age grew up with and still buy computers. People who game still buy computers or consoles. People who stream/create content still use computers and other electronics for that purpose, same with like. Engineers and hobbyists using CAD and other software in creative spaces.
But the smart phone has overtaken the computer as a personal computing device by quite a large margin now. And at every turn companies are trying to make cell phones a den of ad service, slop, and addictive content while stealing any user data that's not nailed down to increase their revenue and continue the circle.
First it was GPUs because crypto, then this. Wonder what useless thing the tech bros will cover up with in a few years!
Article in 2027:
Keyboard prices soared this month, as tech giants pivoted from failed AI projects to employing hordes of monkeys typing randomly. One CEO was quoted as saying, “Just a few trillion more dollars, and I think our random typing model could reproduce the lost contents of the Library of Alexandria.”
When in a gold rush, be the one selling shovels.
I'm off to buy stocks in bananas.
Good luck...
Even when the bubble bursts, they're going to have an insane amount of computing power just sitting there, it will get sold off in bankruptcy proceedings, and some company will gobble it up and operate at a loss while continuing to secure future supply contracts.
There's a very real chance that we're witnessing the slow death of home computing.
The way things shake out it might end up being prohibitively expensive compared to cloud computing, and once that's the norm they price gouge like Walmart did to destroy small businesses.
Instead of dropping a couple grand for a PC every couple years, we'll have steady contracts paying for month at a time indefinitely.
I am really beginning to fucking hate AI. Like, before I just didn't care for it, it just wasn't really my interest. But now I'm really beginning to fucking despise that shit and I really can't wait to see the "AI economy" completely fucking destroyed.
So far, AI has cost me a few hobbies (as in, made them a lot less enjoyable) and one job.
If there's an uprising against clankers, you'll find me at the front lines.
Your enemy is, as usual, billionaires and their fanboys. Clankas don't exist as a separate thing, they are tools of the wealthy to further oppress the common folk.
AI even ruined AI. Up until this insane hype train, ML models were specialized tools to achieve their tasks. Now the whole field is dominated by LLMs and slopgen bullshit.
Yeah that's the annoying thing. Generative AI is actually really useful.....in SPECIFIC situations. Discovering new battery tech, new medicines, etc. are all good use cases because it's basically a parrot and blender combined and most of these things are rehashes if existing technologies in new and novel ways.
It is not a fucking good solution for a search engine replacement to ask "Why do farts smell?". It uses way too much energy for that and it hallucinates bullshit.
Holy shit, really? Crucial? They’ve been a major player for AGES. That’s wild.
I mean, Crucial is just the name that Micron puts on the memory they want to sell to consumers. So this story is basically just, "Micron no longer wants to sell to consumers".
A few months from now: Crucial unshutting down
If that happens, prior Crucial consumers (like myself) should boycott because they already showed what they actually care about and it isn't their loyal customer base. They don't want us to buy their products? We should happily give them what they want now should they change their mind later.
Anyway yeah, if they come back, they're officially on my shit list.
You gotta be fucking kidding me, I swore by Crucial RAM and SSDs. Eat shit, Micron.
Damn, that was the only brand of RAM without LEDs and racing stripes on it
I used to hate on RGB in PCs, until I realized that they can do more than just rainbow vomit; with enough LEDs you can actually get a visible image... If you squint...
One of my favorite things to do with RGB is use the RAM sticks as VU meters and the CPU radiator fans as visualizers when playing music; gives off oldschool HiFi vibes and reminds me of my Winamp days.
That really whips the llama's ass.
AI was never meant to benefit the working class in any capacity.
Its a great rule of thumb that if you see oligarchs hype up something and push for it to be everywhere, its a BAD fucking thing.
I deeply, genuinely, hope that the AI bubble bursts and they get fucked. It's just so short sighted to not hold on to the safety rope.
It will burst but they won't get fucked. They'll either get bailed out or reorganize their debt into another corporation and ride off with all the riches.
AI is really ruining fucking everything. The enviorment, entertainement, music, art, jobs, reality, freedom / privacy / rights.
No, corporate greed is ruining everything with AI.
Because you know if they built a super-AI that give them perfect instructions on how to build Earth into a paradise, but it would require they give up 1/4 of their wealth, they'd be reaching for the reset button before it finished printing them out...
The fact people are blaming the tech rather than the tech bros is a big part of why this keeps happening.
Its the decision of real people that make this situation suck.
I built a god rig in 2022, i bought the best 64gb ddr5 4-stick ram kit i could, an nvidia 4090, the best processor i could, and attached it to the best mobo i could.
I spent about 4800.
My pc is now worth about 6500.
This is some crazy ass shit. Never should a pc appreciate in value.
What the hell is going on?????
Translation, Micron is shutting down Crucial for short term shareholder value at the cost of a sustainable and proven long term brand and channel.
They will return to the market with a new brand once the bubble bursts.
Crucial is the only good brand I can afford. This sucks ass and I HATE AI. I hope AI companies lose all their money and go bankrupt.
AI is destroying so many awesome things, all for profit.
These CEOs seem really slow on the uptake. Gonna put all your chips into the AI business just as the bubble is about to burst.
The market can stay irrational far longer than you can stay solvent.
this seems incredibly short sighted... the current situation exists because there is a large amount of infrastructure and data centres being built. once that infrastructure is built, the demand will return to normal... OR once the bubble bursts, the market will be flooded with used ram from failed data centres..... aliexpress will be selling ram at a dollar a gig when all these data centres flop
The only people who believe in infinite growth in a finite world are mad men and economists.
I read an article yesterday that Samsung's memory division wasn't even willing to let Samsung's own cell phone division lock in any long-term memory buying agreement with them, which the cell phone division hsd been trying to do. Too much money in selling HBM memory for parallel compute to datacenters.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/ai-frenzy-is-driving-new-global-supply-chain-crisis-2025-12-03/
Some 6,000 miles away in California, Paul Coronado said monthly sales at his company, Caramon, which sells recycled low-end memory chips pulled from decommissioned data-center servers, have surged since September. Almost all its products are now bought by Hong Kong-based intermediaries who resell them to Chinese clients, he said.
"We were doing about $500,000 a month," he said. "Now it's $800,000 to $900,000."
I threw away a bunch of large-capacity DDR4 DIMMs last year, figured that they'd be useless in the future. Kind of wish I hadn't, now. Reusing old DIMMs is probably the only source of supply that can be ramped up in the near term.
In October, SK Hynix said all its chips are sold out for 2026, while Samsung said it had secured customers for its HBM chips to be produced next year. Both firms are expanding capacity to meet AI demand, but new factories for conventional chips won't come online until 2027 or 2028.
Two or three years until manufacturing capacity will be ramped up.
So their not shutting down, just focusing on AI idiots until the bubble busts and then they will turn back to consumers.......
Rules of Acquisition #1,261-- Always fuck over the idiots in the market. And when you've taken all their money, go back to your base with inflated prices.
I don't believe this, because it is too stupid. 2026 demand forecasts for HBM I don't believe will materialize, as customers can't pay those crazy RAM prices either, OpenAI can't pay for all of their promises, demand isn't high enough for the planned data centers, and power and labour constraints.
I don't believe it because Micron is a brand that has value premium to it. Even if they just keep charging extortionist prices while HBM demand fantasy remains propagandized, there will eventually be worthwhile consumer demand for RAM, right? Killing the division and firing everyone in it, is Micron saying "making too much money from HBM must forever put all eggs in HBM basket"
I hope when the AI bubble pops, Micron goes with it then.
Also, I can’t wait to buy up used RAM for pennys when the bubble pops.
Damn. This sucks. I've been buying Crucial ram sticks as long as I can remember. They've been the reliable go to brand for me. First it was EVGA and now Crucial. How depressing.
Cyberpunk wasn't supposed to be a prophecy. It was meant to be a warning.
