alt Hacker News> Seems hard to imagine that some robber baron of the 19th century didn't already do this.
They tried it and lost their shirts. When you hoard a critical input, that input doesn't just disappear. You spend huge amounts of money pushing the price up, and then the market price turns against you as people finally figure out that the hoarding was just a stunt, that you don't really have a higher-valued use for the stuff you hoarded, and all of it is going to be right back on the market sooner or later.
It's hard to tell from the news but it sounds like they've negotiated contracts for a recurring stream of DRAM rather than just trying to buy a ton of it on an open market. Wouldn't we be stuck with high prices until manufacturing capacity increases and/or the deal expires?