your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@jenniferplusplus/116127090589590254

which is why there is no hoarding of all the computers and RAM for data centers that don’t even exist. what we are witnessing is a mafia-type collusion to remove from commercial circulation all the computational power people need to continue about their daily digital lives without paying rents to IP-thieving techbro clouds.

THERE IS NO RAM SHORTAGE.

THERE IS A BIG TECH COLLUSION TO CREATE A PC TECH SHORTAGE

memory is just the beginning. techbros are out to kill the PC market

Feb 24 at 9:31pmWeb
Show threadChris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸Feb 24
@blogdiva @jenniferplusplus ididn't think about it this way….!
Show threadGiflianFeb 24

@blogdiva @jenniferplusplus "you'll own nothing and be happy"

I was sort of hoping that these imaginary hardware shortages would get everyone up in arms but I expect most people think it's a temporary blip.

Show threadBen ToddFeb 24

@giflian

I'll be happy and use a note pad and pen. Screw giving them evil buggers even a penny.

@blogdiva @jenniferplusplus

Show threadFlipper 🐬🏳️‍🌈Feb 24
@blogdiva yep: they're not even buying RAM, just RAM futures, creating an artificial scarcity that drives up prices for their competition (ie. us, ordinary human beings).
Show threadJargogglesFeb 24
@flipper @blogdiva
Sometimes, I like to imagine a world where we just threw people into a volcano if they tried to do shit like lend the same banana to three people and then claim they had three bananas or sell people bananas that don't exist yet.
Show threadPaul CantrellFeb 25

@jargoggles @blogdiva @flipper See, that’s how you end up with polluted volcanos.

Dump your billionaires elsewhere! Leave the volcanos alone!

Show threadThe Orange ThemeFeb 25
@inthehands @jargoggles @blogdiva @flipper Wouldn't they just vaporize immediately? Wear your respirator!
Show threadJargogglesFeb 25
@inthehands @blogdiva @flipper
Counterpoint: volcano hungry
Show threaddisorderlyfFeb 24
@blogdiva Even HDD and GPU prices are going up now. At this rate, CPUs and possible even PSUs will start getting crazy expensive if the market doesn't course correct.
Show threadFluffy Kitty CatFeb 25
@disorderlyf @blogdiva this is the Point work hard and trees start subsidizing local production to ensure availability
Show threadGabsFeb 24
@blogdiva they read Doctorow and, like they did with Orwell, (deliberately) learned the exact opposite of the message.
Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceFeb 25
@blogdiva siege warfare. It’s always the same. Laying siege and hoarding everything.
Show threadRobFeb 25

RE: https://floss.social/@fdroidorg/116126780481394324

@blogdiva more enshitification, resist

Show threadUrzlFeb 25
@blogdiva Good timing for Google to lock down Android yet further, right?
Show threadKinene⭐🐻Feb 25
@gooba42 @blogdiva Grrrrr.
Show threadJohnFeb 25

@blogdiva

Will they manage to kill the PC market? Or will they manage to give birth to tens of thousands of small, local computer recycling, refurbishing, and building companies/centers?

All of it is going to collapse in on itself. It's just Theranos except instead of a couple billions of dollars it's a couple trillions of dollars.

Show threadFluffy Kitty CatFeb 25

@johnzajac @blogdiva that, and diversification of production. Things like RISC-V aren't just for nerds, it's the key to a resilient supply chain.

The computer market's getting fundamentally upended and old hardware won't be automatically obsolete anymore

Show threadFluffy Kitty CatFeb 25
@johnzajac @blogdiva now is the time for right to repair anything with a chip in it
Show threadTeflonTrout  he/himFeb 25

@fluffykittycat @johnzajac @blogdiva

fuck yeah, I didn't expect analog nowhere to be the dystopia we were headed towards

Show threadJohn TimaeusFeb 25

@johnzajac @blogdiva

Unfortunately, they're monopolizing the supply chains and having them build big industrial equipment.

Most consumers need consumer gear. We need lawnmowers and hand pushed snowblower. Everything being built for the AI bubble is a 10m wide combine

You can't put what they're having built under a desk, or in a laptop, or as 512g storage in a thumb drive

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@johntimaeus @blogdiva

So what you're saying is that most of the world will be plunged into non-smart appliances, and people won't discard computers and phones like they're toilet paper, like some kind of frickin' paradise?

Show threadNicovel0 🍉Feb 25
@johnzajac maybe it will kill disposable vapes too, truly a return to the dark ages
Show threadJohn TimaeusFeb 25

@johnzajac @blogdiva

I'm seeing a 5ish year long realignment toward consumer electronics -- after the bubble bursts and the initial economic havoc clears. The primary suppliers will have detooled all the 'user grade' supply chains by the end of 2026.

Getting back to making affordable RAM, performant cpu, and storage that you can buy and practically use as an end user is going to be hard.

If the bubble bursts today, I don't need 10-20 rack units of gpu and power sucking high performance storage.

I need a phone with an unbroken screen, and a laptop with double the cores, memory, and ssd of the one I bought four years ago.

Datacenter gear at discount prices doesn't fit in my backpack.

Show threadJohn TimaeusFeb 25

@johnzajac @blogdiva

Quite the opposite. Personally owned compute will become the exclusive territory of the rich.

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@johntimaeus @blogdiva

Which will be useless because most content is created by the non rich

They'll have a whole lotta nothin because no one will make software because it won't make any money. I guess if you think Claude will code all software in the future that's not true, but you'd have to be a rube to believe that.

If personal compute goes away, literally 30% of modern GDP goes with it, probably more because of all the shit that relies on it for logistics and commerce

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@johntimaeus @blogdiva

Also long before people stop having computers they will start recycling and reusing tech rather than throwing it away.

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@johntimaeus @blogdiva

There are already groups in every major city that refurbish computers for free and run component libraries. They will simply become ubiquitous

Phones and PCs no longer lose value. People will no longer demand 100x the computing power they actually need. Brick phones will proliferate

The panopticon will...have nothing to look at

FAANG will cease to exist, but so will Palantir and all the other data scrapers. LLMs will fail for lack of published human-made material

Show threadToni AittoniemiFeb 25

@johnzajac @johntimaeus @blogdiva It’s still an interesting gamble:

They are trying to convert a consumer economy into an elite economy. (Back to feudalism essentially)

They are betting that they don’t need demand from us any more, but can just keep selling ultra-expensive things to the ultra-rich.

That’s what’s going on IMO.

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@gimulnautti @johntimaeus @blogdiva

Yeah, they aren't terrible wise, are they?

Show threadViolet MadderFeb 25

@johnzajac @johntimaeus @blogdiva

But see for persons to get compute and produce things, they're going to try to force everybody to go through bare bones terminals to access the cloud.

That way everything we make, everything we say and calculate and draw etc passes through their gates. Total surveillance and control, with them able to cut us off at any time.

Of course this only works when you have a good enough data connection to get a snappy feed from the CPUs, anyplace without fast fiber will just be left floundering. Which is fine by them.

Show threadJohnFeb 25

@violetmadder @johntimaeus @blogdiva

They're destroying the system that *already does that* to replace it with a system that...does that?

The plausible end result of what's happening is not particularly complicated: the rich will either back down or be destroyed. That's what history tells us. The relative timeline / scale of that consequence is the only thing in question.

Also, the impact of climate change on society's metabolism and hunger for the rich should not be minimized.

Show threadLance, Enjoying Copious PollenFeb 25

@blogdiva Makes me glad I own around a half dozen computers of various types. I can probably live out my remaining years with at least one functional personal computer.

I hope sanity prevails sooner than that, and that the market isn't thoroughly gutted by greedy techbros.

Show threadRythurFeb 25

@blogdiva

Backfires, we all go outside

To play.

Show threadCleoFeb 25
@blogdiva yep, home server community was becoming way to refined for them to be comfortable. Someone with no technical knowledge could easily run a qnap server.
Show threadRealGene ☣️Feb 25
@blogdiva
Wouldn't it be easier to just have the PRC take Taiwan?
Show threadSonLiteFeb 25
@blogdiva Oligarchic Technocracy....they just getting started.... soon They'll start buying ''SOULS & ''BODIES'' On the open market
Show threadalexraffa Feb 25
@blogdiva I suggest an excellent boom from Yanis Varoufakis "technofeudalism" that expands on manu of the topics I read in this thread.
Show threadmahadevankFeb 25

@blogdiva well, they will be severely limited, because you can't get on the cloud without a PC of your own anyways, and they have lousy memory hog software so they can't push things up too much.

In the worst case they raise it to the point where its hard to buy exotic hardware. But then, it would create a reverse revolution of open-source thats more hardware optimized.

The tech bros are really, really dumb.

Show threadwarkolmFeb 25
@blogdiva I wouldn't attribute malice to their incompetence, but who knows
Show threadHavoc BSc MSc 💚Feb 25
@blogdiva are they out to kill the fediverse too? Server costs are going up because of all this. Is the ultimate aim to price us out of existence?
https://mementomori.social/@rolle/116125657344469470
Roni Rolle Laukkarinen (@[email protected])

Server providers are increasing their prices because of higher hardware and energy costs (RAM and SSD prices have jumped by up to 500% since 2025, partly due to the rise of AI). If you're using a free or donation-based Mastodon server, remember that hosting costs are going up. Support your instance if you can. #Mastodon #MastoAdmin #SupportYourLocal #SupportFreeSoftware

Memento mori
Show threadCockneyLaurieFeb 25

@blogdiva

It's better than that...

Prevent new high level computers at a competitive price so companies do more of their computing remotely on AI computers.

Show threadSonikkuFeb 25
@blogdiva
Pretty much this
Show threadRichard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴‍♂️📷 🗺️Feb 25

@blogdiva

And it is what might kill Windows and Microsoft, if people cannot upgrade their hardware to match Windows "upgrades" they will seek OSs that run on less computing power.

Ironic that t takes multiple orders of magnitude more computing power to run a video game about putting a man on the moon than it did to put a man on the moon.

Show threadxroFeb 25

@blogdiva

That was also one of my first reactions, but on reflection I don't think it's accurate.

I think they mainly want to hamper their direct compentation.

The damage to the PC market was originally unintended, but as always, those bros try to exploit all new circumstances to their benefit.

So, yes, they might double down on that now.

Thankfully there are still big Interests aligned with a thriving PC market. Nvidia might have abandoned the consumer but not everybody did yet

Show threadxroFeb 25

@blogdiva
However,

This DOES give us a glimpse into a future, where goods are no longer produced for consumers but only for big tech.

Where the consumer and small businesses will no longer have the option to buy what they need, but will have to make due with whatever scraps are left to buy at unreasonable prices.

Show threadBobo_PK 🦄Feb 25
@blogdiva maybe the long term plan is to kill all smaller hosters and only be left with a oligopolous hosting market.
Show threadcraignicolFeb 25
@blogdiva so like OPEC in the 70s then? That went well
Show threadyour auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦Feb 25
@craignicol 🛎 🛎 🛎 and by the same OPEC people. literally. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are behind this AI madness. they just wanna make sure they keep on pumping that petrol and methane.
Show threadToni AittoniemiFeb 25

@blogdiva They want you on shit computers that can’t do anything but act as terminals for their cloud.

A cloud where they control and surveil everything.

Show threadjsFeb 25

@blogdiva Except that is not how it works. What happens is that HBM as used in datacenters has a MUCH higher margin than consumer grade DDR RAM. But capacities on wavers are limited. So those memory companies optimize for most money per area of waver. And since the margin for HBM is so much higher, they make almost no regular consumer grade DDR RAM at all anymore. So now the demand for the little DDR RAM that is being produced is vastly higher than what is produced, so there ends up a bidding war over the little DDR RAM that is being made. AI companies are not buying up DDR RAM and not using it - they’re buying the HBM and don’t care about your DDR RAM at all.

I hate the situation right now as much as everybody else, but spreading misinformation about it is not gonna help. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s capitalism and the memory companies having no reason to make DDR RAM with a lower margin.

// Edit: This is also the reason for the increase in SSD prices, because the companies that make memory and the companies that make SSDs are an almost perfect overlap. They just all only produce what is currently by far the highest margin for them.

Show threadskryFeb 26

@js @blogdiva You mean chip wafers I guess.

I hope that this market opportunity causes Apple to make more fabs.

Show threadjsFeb 26
@skry @blogdiva Building a new fab is a very long process (and Apple doesn’t have any, they just use TSMC). TSMC has been pushed hard to build more fabs, but they said no. Why? Because they anticipate that if they build a fab now, by the time they open it, the AI bubble has burst and there is not enough demand to utilize it and then TSMC would be sitting on the costs. There were some articles about how TSMC is sabotaging the “AI future”, how only TSMC is to blame for not providing more capacity, etc. trying to pressure TSMC into building more fabs. But from their perspective, it makes no sense. They need to plan long term - think 10 years and more.