In reality a lawsuit needs to have some basis. The bar might be low but judges frown on having their time wasted with a truly frivolous claim or a claim with no clear damages or harm shown.

Honestly a lot of lawsuits feel like they just want the other party to pay them (settle) to make the lawsuit go away, even if there is no case; what are the repercussions for a frivolous lawsuit?

> Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open.

In the U.S., competitors are allowed to act in similar ways in response to economic realities, as long as they each arrive at that decision independently. But publicly anchoring your price to a competitor’s is potentially illegal.

> Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, orinferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels.

[Emphasis added]

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

>Price fixing is legal as long as your are doing it in the open. In the UK it is called "price match" and eg. if supermarket says they keep prices matched to their competitor. No regulator raises an eyebrow.

No, the key term is "collusion", which could be done in the open or not. If a competitor told you they were unilaterally raising prices in secret, that would still be legal. Where you get into trouble is if you are cooperating to set prices. And no, this is all determined by a judge so cute workarounds like "I'm telling my competitors that I'm raising prices then gauging his body language" won't work.

That is not what price fixing actually is. In the UK "price matching" is a one-to-many relationship meaning that the price of goods is set to the "lowest available"

Price fixing is a many-to-one all the manufactures agree to the highest prices they all agree on and set it there.

Price match creates downward pressure, nobody is gonna sue over lower prices.

This is like if you showed a supermarket that their competitor's oranges were more expensive, and they "matched" by raising their prices for everyone.

That’s a nice short-term solution. How do you envision adding an infinitely-deep-pocketed state-sponsored supplier to the mix over the longer term?

cxmt is also selling their memory similar to the big three. No one hardware company in their right mind will sell their products not as high as possible after you learn how much harder hardware engineer and fab people work for.

There is no reason for there not to be a price fixing. But the OpenAI's announcement from 2025-10-01 about buying 40% of supply, removes any need for collusion. It was a public signal for everyone to rise prices, one that each company could figure on their own. And it will be very hard to prove otherwise.

Two things can be true; they could theoretically make agreements to limit supply, like the OPEC does to exert control over international oil prices. But the OPEC is all above board and there's plenty of international competition on the oil market.

But the challenge is in proving it.

Prices skyrocketing create a perfect opportunity to slip in a little artificial bump and hope everyone blames the market. See also: egg prices in 2024.

if demand is too high, the market will adjust by adding supply. If Apple can't take the price of memory, why don't they make memory themselves. Oh no, the technical and manufacturing know-how is a barrier to entry and there is no talent available to make it. That is memory or semi companies' competitive advantages and their pricing power. It also takes Phd degrees to work at hardware companies. You can't have people doing leetcode for 2 months and todo apps and getting into the field and make 300k a year and hardware engineers wih Phds making 100k before this boom. It is long overdue for a rebalance of pricing power between hardware and software companies

[flagged]

> An agreement to restrict production, sales, or output is just as illegal as direct price fixing, because reducing the supply of a product or service drives up its price. For example, the FTC challenged an agreement among competing oil importers to restrict the supply of lubricants by refusing to import or sell those products in Puerto Rico. The competitors were seeking to pressure the legislature to repeal an environmental deposit fee on lubricants, and warned of lubricant shortages and higher prices.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

hmm maybe the plaintiff should sue nvidia?