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franga2000today at 11:51 AM0 repliesview on HN

Your logic that OpenAI can by proxy afford to buy out the entire world's supply of RAM because consumers value OpenAI products more than other RAM-dependent things assumes that OpenAI's money comes from selling goods or services to those consumers. It doesn't. The overwhelming majority of people pay zero dollars per year on AI services, while almost everyone spends at least a few hundred a year on gadgets that need RAM and other services that run on servers that need it as well.

The money OpenAI is using to starve the rest of us of RAM is coming from pumped up valuation through circular investments, investor FOMO, cheap debt and often straight up gambling. Rich bastards know that they can pump money into the bubble to grow it and hopefully cash out before it bursts. Nowhere in that process did any regular person value AI datacenters over other uses of RAM.