RAM prices are forcing companies to choose between higher prices and worse specs. Some have decided on doing both.
  • moustachio@lemmy.worldEnglish
    47·
    5 days ago

    “Shrinkflation” is a cute branding for theft and class warfare.

    They’re going all in on lowering your quality of life to contribute to AI data centers, and pretending it’s some natural market force.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
    17·
    5 days ago

    cheapflation as well, they try to disguise as the original product but you notice the plastic, is cheaper, or a quality part of the device is been replaced cheap degradable things.

  • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    6 days ago

    Something’s got to give at some point here. Everything from computers to phones to cash registers to traffic signals need these components and are costing more due to the shortages, despite production remaining high.

    The world is going to have to decide if it is worth putting the entire modern world on a pricing hold to funnel all the memory into speculative markets.

    • realitista@lemmus.orgEnglish
      32·
      6 days ago

      The voting is done with money, and the money is in a few hands which right now say “yes, yes it is”. I don’t think this will last forever, though. Their free cash flow won’t allow it, and they are notoriously fickle.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      until AI bubble busts, i dont see anything going down anytime soon. most tech companies have been peddling, and went all in with AI

      • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 days ago

        I wonder how they expect to build all these data centers with the supply chain they’re collapsing. 😅

    • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
      41·
      6 days ago

      The majority of the western world’s labour force is now comprised of middle management like roles that are trained to extract every gram of wealth out of products consumers while they enact their intermediation role that was invented to avoid massive unemployment now that everyone (regardless of competence) has a uni degree. When MsCs started having to work food retail the powers that be should have woken up and regulated numerus clausu. They didn’t, so here we are. Karen from dumbfuqistan has a PhD in ML because Unis aren’t allowed to flunk dumb dumbs anymore so a degree is virtually worthless when selecting candidates for a job, despite the fact Karen’s competence wasn’t really evaluated at all during her PhD. Don’t get me wrong, unis are extremely important, but the onus of figuring out if people learned well enough during uni has transitioned from the educators to employers. So when a conman comes to sell AGI to Karen’s employer, Karen, CTO, with a PhD in machine learning, has no fucking clue the conman is full of shit and advises her peers and superiors to buy into it.

      And that is yet another symptom we’re living in late stage capitalism.

      /rant

      • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 days ago

        What about the literally everything else I mentioned though? Those semiconductors are in everything, not just personal computers and gaming consoles.

          • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            4 days ago

            I. Am. Not. Talking. About. Personal. Computers.

            I am talking about electronic NON-COMPUTER devices that use computer CHIPS.

            They are not going to recycle an old graphics card to build a weather radar, and it doesn’t matter how fast computers were 10 years ago when building a new elevator.

            I’m saying that every modern everything needs those chips and they’re using them only for one industry, and every other industry, including but not limited to computers, is heavily impacted by that.

              • badgermurphy@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                4 days ago

                This is a text medium, so yelling is literally impossible, though I did add extra punctuation to draw attention to the same point I have been making in every post in this thread that does not seem to have been heard despite being stated very plainly. Sorry if that reads as yelling, but it is meant as emphasis on a repeatedly missed point.

                On the subject of the article’s contents, I am aware of its subject matter, and was making a directly adjacent point to the problem they are detailing about PCs, as one often does when engaging in conversation, rather than, say, writing an article summary. This is why I was careful to specify that I was talking about the broader electronics industry and their adjacent industries, which today encompasses many other products and supply chains beyond the obvious, because semiconductors and, yes, things made of semiconductors like memory, are present in many, many, places people don’t think of.

                All of those things becoming more expensive or unavailable has the potential to slow or halt those and other industries, even ones whose products contain no electronics whatsoever. If every electronic component between Hong Kong and London costs more, a Londoner couldn’t buy so much as underpants without paying for that a dozen times because every single step of getting that underwear designed, woven, packaged, shipped, and put onto his ass costs way more or has to be done some old-fashioned slower way because some electronic gizmo is cost prohibitive or can no longer be produced.

                So, in summary, the article raises alarms about the PC industry, and I am expanding the conversation to point out that PCs are merely the first and most obvious casualty of this market consolidation and resource monopolization, and discussion on this matter would be more constructive to consider the potential harms to broader society and its overall technology dependence, rather than just “Oh no, the PlayCubeBox 10,000,000 is going to cost more now!” It is quite OK to add your own context when talking about the news.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zipEnglish
    21·
    5 days ago

    The problem is that tech companies have fewer choices than ever. They can either hurt performance or raise prices.

    Time for less bloaty software, boys!

    (also please stop shoving a webbrowser in every app. Or imitating them in your GUI framework)

    • jacksilver@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      Besides using the term “shrinkflation” which is arguably a “clickbaity” term in this context, I don’t think the article is terrible. It’s a bit of a nothing article, as it’s something that’s been called out for a while, but a lot of new devices on the horizon are providing less (RAM/storage) for the same/higher price.

      Its not the most interesting article, but at least uses real examples demonstrating the effect, which is sadly better than most articles I’ve read on this topic.