The RAM shortage is... a shortage. It's temporary by nature. RAM didn't suddenly get 4x more expensive to produce, it's just in high demand right now. Supply will eventually catch up even if it takes a few years.
But common among all these replacements is that they're not really planned in detail years before. I may weigh up factors like "I don't really need an upgrade right now" against factors like "the market looks like it'll probably get really shitty later this year", or "I could really really use an upgrade right now" against "but the market is shitty now and we're right before a product launch which will shake things up". But I always react to my current or near-future needs/wants and current or near-future market conditions.
So hearing "the RAM market will be good again in 5 years" is completely irrelevant to me. My decisions are entirely based around how the RAM market is right now and how I believe it will look throughout the year or the next.
I am wondering if this so true. What resources and time are needed to increase supply by N times to catch demand.
The same way nobody wanted to invest in mask supply in the US or Western Europe during covid, because producers knew the demand spike wouldn't last and they'll be left with useless equipment to pay after the crisis passed.
If they're wrong and this is actually a permanent spike in demand, then it'll take the industry a while to realize it but eventually they'll collectively figure it out and increase supply. The ones who figure it out soonest and increase supply fastest will profit the most. The ones who figure it out slowest will lose market share.
I am one who think there is a chance it will sustain. AI is useful tool, Opus unlocks N times productivity gain for devs since Opus 4.5, which is available just for 3 months.
This means adaptation is just started, it could expand on all kind of usecases, niches, solving problems, products, etc, which could be N times more demand for compute from what we have now.
If it doesn't decline, than anyone who took that risk and increased their production capacity will benefit greatly, and those who didn't will lose market share.
The incentives here are naturally very well aligned with solving the shortage. If doing nothing is likely to solve the shortage, then they'll do nothing. If increasing supply is likely to solve the shortage, then they'll increase supply. If there's a 50/50 chance of both, then some will increase supply and some will do nothing, and the market will reward whichever group was right and punish the other.
I'm always baffled how seriously some people take that “market and incentives always lead to the greater good” religion despite plenty of empirical evidence against it.
But hey, there are creationists out there too so it's not too surprising I guess.
I never said anything of the sort, I'm just explaining basic economic facts. Feel free to pretend they aren't true if you wish, but if you do then for all our sakes please stay as far away from the levers of economic policy as possible.
In the real world, executives simply aren't being incentivized for all-or-nothing risk taking and the shareholders of public industrial companies don't want the executives to make gambles in an attempt to make a big payout, they want steady yields with limited risks. And the financial actors who would be ready to take this kind of “high risk high reward” bets aren't operating in these kinds of markets.
Just look out of the window, semiconductor and electronics fabs aren't rushing to expand their capacity, they are very familiar with the issue of oversupply and are always very cautious before making capacity investment, because they know it could very well make them go under very quick should the market reverse.
The more time passes, the more convinced I am that nothing did more damage to the broader public understanding of economic dynamics than the average Econ 101 class.
Ford had almost $20 billion in EV car manufacturing investments planned for the mid-late 2020s and the abrupt end of the EV subsidies cost Ford billions of dollars and they have abandoned multiple investments.
If you do nothing, you still are rewarded because you are making pure profit in either scenario. If you invest billions then you are digging out of that for years regardless, and could be in the whole for decades if you bet wrong.
[0] https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-to-build-a-20-bil...
[1] https://techovedas.com/what-does-it-take-to-build-a-semicond...
Existing fabs are currently reaping the rewards of their previous wise investments in building out this capacity in the first place right before a shortage. Without those past investments, the shortage today would be even worse. Future rewards will be allocated based on who correctly predicts the best use of current resources to meet future demand (whether that includes huge investments to build even more fabs or not is yet to be discovered).