this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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[–] themurphy@lemmy.world 323 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Samsung has decreased its output by 50% since September, though the market has already seen price bumps due to inventory being cleared out.

So they artificially create a shortage to hike up the prices. Nice.

[–] Retiring@lemmy.ml 106 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That’s capitalism for you 😉

[–] themurphy@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago (4 children)
[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 68 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yes, capitalism will always choose the most efficient path to acquiring capital, which is evidently acquisition + mergers until they can artificially limit supply, then exploit and extort society wholesale; regardless of the consequences.

Yep… Doesn’t matter if the answer is war, famine, mass incarceration, crippling debt, homelessness, mental illness, pollution, climate change, ecocide, or genocide — capitalists will always find the most efficient path to the acquisition of capital.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 33 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Monopolies are the natural, direct result of unbrindled capitalism. So yeah, capitalism at work.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The only higher Return On Investment than creating yourself or finding and securinb a monopoly position and squeezing costumers is, maybe, buying politicians and having laws written to favour you, so naturally people guided only by the personal upside maximization idology will engage in both if they think they can get away withnit (or the penalties if caught are less than the profits).

It is absolutelly natural in Capitalism for companies to seek and even create monopoly positions and then squeeze customers, and to corrupt those who make the laws and regulations as well as those who enforce them, and often these things are combined: notice for example how the artifical monopoly which is Copyright has been repeatedly extended in duration to well beyond the point were there is an upside for Society, and now none of us will ever see the works created during our lifetime become Public Works.

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Never, not in our free markets!

At least a duopoly for the illusion of competition

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago

To be fair they did far over produce them which is why they’ve been so dirt cheap lately.

But companies did learn over Covid that if you just don’t make something you can charge whatever you want for it and people will pay it.

[–] akrot@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

There are plenty of other players on the SSD marker. Crucial, WD, etc. I predict that their prediction will be wrong

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 41 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We cynics predict the other players will follow suit, acting as a cartel. The prices will remain inflated, and media covering the price rise will blithely repeat industry talking points as fact. A few keyboard warriors will be convinced enough to point to these articles in online arguments. Someone somewhere types "supply and demand" unironically.

Maybe a few years down the line there will be an investigation when a whistleblower forces some government in europe to appear as if they're doing something. The trial will last longer than the media coverage of it.

After that, we predict a settlement that costs less than the profits they made colluding to inflate prices. Someone somewhere types "cost of doing business"

[–] JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Rinse and repeat

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

If Samsung publicly announces cutting back production and the rest do the same I don't think it's considered collusion.

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Yeah but they probably have all the same suppliers and even if one keeps their prices low for now eventually someone there is going to wonder why they are doing the same work as everyone else but getting paid less for it.

This is why you need a healthy market. You need lots of competitions selling a lot of different products. Not 4 companies all seeing the same crap.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 222 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Spreading rumors of price hikes, to justify later price hikes and quell customer outrage over it.

Capitalism 101.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 41 points 8 months ago (4 children)

They all cut way back on manufacturing last year due to the price drops from significantly reduced demand. So it's 100% expected that prices will go up because they've created a reduced supply.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It’s like there is a SSD OPEC.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There's an unofficial open for everything these days, food, medicine, computer components, etc... there's a handful of companies that corner the market for everything now and they all are perfectly happy matching supply and pricing.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They're reducing supply because they can't make any money with this supply/demand mismatch, Micron for example didn't have a single profitable quarter and lost something like $6B total over the course of 2023

The only reason SSD prices have been this low is because we've been paying less than the cost to produce them as they try to recoup some of their losses and shed inventory

[–] 4lan@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

so they are treating computer parts like diamonds now? Faking supply shortages to increase demand, therefore prices?

Capitalism is so efficient.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

Yep pure market manipulation

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Butter the bun before the bake

[–] doublejay1999@lemmy.world 137 points 8 months ago (3 children)

By what magik are they able to “predict” a 50% price increase ?

[–] Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc 128 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Market Manipulation Lvl 1: Hyping

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[–] MisterD@lemmy.ca 45 points 8 months ago

Setting expectations..

[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 25 points 8 months ago

They plan to raise prices 50%, then they raise prices 50%.

My employer isn't any better. We raised prices on our second biggest product line about 6 months ago.

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 69 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Well that's not great... They're already pretty expensive as it is.

[–] _number8_@lemmy.world 50 points 8 months ago (5 children)

yeah i thought 4TB would be like $50 now. whatever happened to moore's law

[–] Lath@kbin.social 48 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Unregulated capitalism some would say, I say cheap production costs with little to no consequence whatsoever for them doing this kind of thing.

[–] fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Exactly, if forced scarcity was regulated, we’d be in an entirely different situation. For instance diamonds would be practically worthless.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Moore's law has been dead for a long long time.

E: if you're downvoting this it's because you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Moore's law was the observation that transistor density would double every ~2 years. That's not happening and hasn't for a long time.

[–] neclimdul@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

No need to downvote this. It's an insidery technically correct statement. We've redefined how we measure Moore's law several times to make it "keep working" and some people designing chips, not selling them, think it's not only outlined it's usefulness but also not true anymore.

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[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

SSDs are absurdly cheap at the moment. 2023s demand glut led to a huge over abundance of SSDs and dirt cheap prices.

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[–] Cyberflunk@lemmy.world 66 points 8 months ago

Greeedflation bullshit

[–] FunderPants@lemmy.ca 59 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Looks Iike a good year for deleting things.

[–] laverabe@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

nothing like a little digital Swedish death cleaning to free up space

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 38 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Maybe this will encourage devs not to make games over 100GB.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 62 points 8 months ago

Hahahaha! Good joke mate :)

[–] b3an@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)
[–] Sheltac@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago
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[–] n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 8 months ago

Glad I just bought a 4tb gen 3 drive for dirt cheap

[–] Smacks@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

PC part prices are already extremely high, how in the hell can anyone build or buy anything with prices so high?

[–] Alpha71@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Well, guess I'm buying that new NVME in January after all...

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[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

I wonder if it's gonna be a fire or a flood this year. They always make stuff up to raise it.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

I was on crucial last night half interested in an M2 drive but they're a little out of range, guess I won't be getting one for the time being

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