alt Hacker NewsWould you prefer the money goes to middlemen? When supply is constrained and the manufacturer doesn't price to match, all that happens is scalping. Even if the memory die manufacturers gave away their products for free it wouldn't budge consumer RAM prices in this market environment.
youre taking a very consumer oriented look, while we're explicitly talking about the perspective of the producer in this thread.
the consumer price barely matters for the perspective of the company evaluating wherever they can enter the market, because thats just a tiny fraction of it. And the largest piece of the market buys directly from the producer, SK Hynex, Samsung and Micron.
For consumers wanting to buy RAM sticks the difference is academic, i give you that. But for the capital that decides wherever to invest millions if not billions into getting a factory up and running - the price they can set for the b2b sales is the more important factor.
If it wasnt already proven to be basically whatever number they feel like setting... the opportunity would be a lot less obvious.