For a while CPUs kept getting significantly faster every year. Then ram kept getting bigger. Then NVMe came along and brought 200-1000x IOPS.

So writing optimized software was niche and overshadowed by the huge gains of hardware. People and corporations didn't care. They preferred fast feature delivery. Even when optimizing techniques like multi-tenant servers, we ended up having heavy containers wasting RAM and resources. And most apps switched to web frameworks like Electron where each one has its own huge web browser. Most people didn't care.

I hope this shortage has a silver lining of untangling the mess and refactoring the sea of bloat. But I know it's more likely some trick will be found to just patch it up a bit and only reduce the pain up to the new equilibrium level. For example something idiotic like Electron sharing resources across multiple apps and taking huge security risks. Corporations love to play false dichotomies to save pennies.

I'd like to see a State-owned memory manufacturer

What's a bit unsettling is that this isn't a short spike driven by hype; it's a structural shift in demand

DRAM spot prices are something like what they were 4 years ago. Having RAM for cheap is nice. But it doesn't cost an extraordinary amount. I recently needed some RAM and was able to pick up 16x32 DDR4 for $1600. That's about twice as expensive as it used to be but $1600 is pretty cheap for 512 GiB of RAM.

A 16 GiB M4 Mac Mini is $400 right now. That covers any essential use-case which means this is mostly hitting hobbyists or niche users.

AI has had a net negative on my life and created negative value for me and my family. It's raising my power rate. It's stealing my ideas and creative output. All to enrich a select few assholes who didn't need any more enrichment.

AI embodies everything wrong with our modern gilded age era of capitalism.

It's going to be interesting for Google Chrome team when new laptops will be equipped with 8Gb RAM by default.

May rise? RAM has already gone through the roof, why wouldn't everything else?

You either like creating things or you like thinking about things.