Yes? Reports are that OpenAI is buying unfinished memory kits which they have no capacity to complete. It appears that OpenAI is just buying them to remove them from the market and damage their competitors. In United States, that used to be considered against the law if we were actually enforcing such things.

As always, it's the intent that matters.

For the sake of argument, what if Amazon decided tomorrow that they would secure exclusive contracts with all food suppliers and then hoard all the food to starve out the people they don't want to have it? Or at least, drive up the price of food so it becomes completely unaffordable? I know people can simply grow their own food so it's a bit different, but hopefully it gets the point across. It's anti-trust on an unprecedented level.

They didn't buy "manufactured goods", they reserved 40% of the yearly wafer output for the whole world that haven't even been made yet for themselves.

The Sherman Antitrust Act has outlawed abuses of monopsony power since 1890.

What we should really be asking is, why did we ever stop jailing wanton criminals like Scam Alt-Man?

People go to prison for market manipulation all of the time.

A gross mischaracterization, really.

1. Said "consumer" is effectively hoarding Supply, and thus distorting the Market. 2. Said "consumer" has no effective means to either Deploy nor Utilize said products as neither the Data Centers nor the Energy required to power them are in existence. 3. Said "consumer" has articulated his belief that the Taxpayer should "backstop" his endeavors in some capacity, as well.

If you don't find this offensive in the least and possibly criminal at worst, then I don't understand your thought process.

Didn't they sign some big contacts to lock in non-market prices?

Yes, and I actually think it's a symptom of advanced societal decay that you think this is somehow an unreasonable proposition.

What OpenAI is doing will drive up prices for years, shredding consumer welfare, limiting competition and forcing marginally-profitable products off the market, and they're not even going to use the RAM. They're wrecking supply chains simply because they no longer have any technical advantage now that Google and Anthropic have caught up and passed them, and have to resort to dirty tricks like this and digital heroin Sora to try and justify their valuation. No functioning society would or should allow you to get away with that.

Frankly, much worse things than jail should happen to Altman for this kind of torching of the commons, and jail is the watered-down compromise position.