this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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  • Nvidia and Micron are making emotional appeals to consumers while PC users express frustration with big AI companies’ practices and self-serving motives.
  • Memory vendors predict DRAM and SSD shortages lasting until mid-2027, while new tariffs on advanced computing chips and potential Steam Machine pricing over $1,000 add to consumer concerns.
  • The article highlights how corporations use emotional messaging to mask financial interests, advising consumers to remain skeptical of such appeals.
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[–] duncan_bayne@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

Here's an idea: a catalogue of companies who pulled this shit during the bubble, so we know who not to buy from when it bursts.

[–] roserose56@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I said before and I will say it again. AI is product being built by its users, an unfinished program that it is used wrong just for companies to make money. AI hasn't made any progress and we won't see any progress, because it is used by companies to profit.
They don't care about the economy and the downsides, they care to make us use AI.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 22 hours ago

i overheard today on the bus, that someone(assume in grad school) as a TA was planning to use AI to grade all the classes homework without care if it was inconsistently correct or not, it isnt going to end well.

[–] normalentrance@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It almost seems like they want to make home computing unaffordable, so you have to rent PC time from a cloud provider. This way they nickel and dime you, and use your data to train their LLMs.

Micron and nvidia get their cut by being able to set whatever prices they can imagine.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

there are plenty of home computers for sale for under $500. i'm on a $700 laptop right now that's 4 years old.

they just can't run modern games. i can run 2d games just fine or old games.

the gaming crowd seems to forget that most computers don't use integrated graphics and a $1000 PC is a luxury purchase.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago

That's exactly what they're aiming for.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Way, way back, capitalism was a version of “the customer is always right.” Various companies would compete to sell a product at the right price point and quality the customer could accept. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pointed mostly the right direction.

Now capitalism is just the few major companies competing to see who can make the biggest cash grab and fuck the regular customer with prices, fees, and enshittification. Now we have dystopian monopolies divorced from the consumers.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The customer is always right was never a thing.

For a start, it's an intentional shortening of the actual phrase, for exploitative reasons, of "the customer is always right in matters of taste"

Which just means "if they want to buy ugly shit, let them"

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Well shit, that's interesting. Thanks for the link.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago
[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

I have been staring at the original comment trying to figure out how to basically say this, so thank you. lol. "The customer is always right" just means don't tell the customer that green and purple polka dot curtains are fuck-ugly because it will hurt the company's bottom line.

I don't think Capitalism has ever been this romanticized version, at least not in my lifetime. It has always been about how much money "they" can squeeze out of consumers, and they have been inching more and more constantly for a long time to get where we are now. The companies have always wanted to manipulate to make more money, and the only slight road blocks or steps in the right direction have come from government regulation.

The "in matters of taste" line is misinformation started in the last decade online by people who repeat things without looking up if they're true or not.

[–] Four_mile_circus@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

You could go further and say what's happening now isn't capitalism at all. Yanis Varoufakis calls the modern world economy "technofeudalism": it's controlled by information hypercompanies like Amazon, Google, and Apple, that make money not by producing anything, but by controlling the flow of information between consumers and producers, and charging producers rent for access to consumers.

If you're an app developer, you pay Google and Apple whatever they ask, and you follow their rules, or you don't get to sell your product in their app stores; if you sell products, you give Amazon their cut, or you don't get to sell in their market. And because Google and Apple and Amazon have so effectively entrapped customers, capitalists who don't agree to their terms can't get to their consumers at all.

It's vassal capitalism. Capitalists pay their technofeudal lords their 30% cut of revenue and compete with each other for the remaining scraps. And then they raise prices and cut wages, squeeze their workers and exploit their consumers even more, in order to make enough money to survive at all.

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[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

It's exactly what monopolies and oligopolies end up doing, whatever is in their interest to do. If anti-trust laws were actually used to enforce competition, we wouldn't be here. But since we can't compete with the campaign donations of the companies those laws should be regulating, we get no regulation at all and end up here. Selfish people, being selfish, making everything worse for everyone else.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In order to appeal to others' emotions, it really helps to have emotions of your own and feel empathy.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 2 points 22 hours ago

It's just the same old tactics advertising and marketing shitheads have been using for decades. Just ignore them.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 22 hours ago

speaking of gaming i know people with recent degree in gaming related field, not surprise he couldnt find a job in that field.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 6 points 1 day ago

Yet if prices somehow go back to sanity, people will flock back to nVidia like they always did

[–] VirtuePacket@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They can fuck right off.

For the foreseeable future, DIYPC is dead.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

most folks will pay. all my PC gamer friends are just paying $200 per 16GB stick now.

[–] Mesophar@pawb.social 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I am in a position to see first hand people regularly dropping ~$4000USD on "mid-range" PCs. It hasn't slowed down purchasing of PCs, if anything it is speeding up compared to this time last year.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

at that pricepoint it's just about showing off how much money you have.

typical rich way to backhand brag about how rich you are is to whine about how 'expensive' things are that are luxury items.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 33 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Lol

“Our viewpoint is that we are trying to help consumers around the world. We’re just doing it through different channels. […] What’s going on right now is that the TAM [ed: Total Addressable Market] and data center is growing just absolutely tremendously. And we want to make sure that, as a company, we help fulfill that TAM as well.”

Let me translate that for you:

Yes we definitely want to support the consumers, but hey look, the thing is, these data centers want to buy a lot of memory, and guess what, they're willing to buy it in bulk even at a huge mark up! Like just think about that... We're gonna make so much money!

But uh, yeah uh, I feel you, that sucks bro and I appreciate you. But, dude, seriously, look at all this money! So yeah, stay strong guys, tweet about us! And don't forget, if you want to be informed about the best memory deals, definitely sign up for our newsletter! Just put your email right in this field...

[–] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yes we definitely want to support the consumers, but hey look, the thing is, these data centers want to buy a lot of memory, and guess what, they’re willing to buy it in bulk even at a huge mark up! Like just think about that… We’re gonna make so much money!

To be fair I would not be mad if that was the response, It's the pandering that get's me fuming

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[–] Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 234 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Forget ram. Wait until there’s widespread power outages yet you’re somehow paying 10x for your electricity bill because of the new data center down the street.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 22 hours ago

and anyone near datacenters get polluted water or any unforseen pollution, contamination that has yet been studied.

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 161 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

this is actually happening

my elecric company just raised its rates 13% and forcast rasing 25% next year after

we have a power making dam in town

historically we have had some of the cheapest power in the USA

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If the data center is causing all that power drain, they should be the ones footing the damned bill

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 22 hours ago

they also, businesses get wholesale lower rates than residential consumers. which is one of the big issues about them not paying thier fair share.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 0 points 22 hours ago

i heard datacenter requires most of our electricity generation eventually.

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[–] Broken_Window@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm worried that at the end of the day, gamers will just give up and accept higher prices, kinda like with GPUs.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 1 points 22 hours ago

Apart from a bit of simracing, I game almost exclusively on my Steam Deck lately. I upgraded a bunch of hardware early last year, and have no plans to upgrade again any time soon. I'm kinda glad I got it when I did.

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[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Nothing like a call for empathy from the morally bankrupt.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 66 points 2 days ago (2 children)
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[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago

I could care less about Asus and many more of those fuckers, but this is impacting every single part of the consumer electronics environment.

https://wccftech.com/asus-declares-all-in-ai-strategy-as-server-revenue-soars-beyond-expectation/

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 102 points 2 days ago (30 children)

Computer electronics are like my main hobby. It was expensive on a good day. This makes it unaffordable.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 22 hours ago

it would be more unaffordable once people dont have jobs from all the layoffs.

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[–] abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 60 points 2 days ago (3 children)

These people keep saying "it's the future" but it just seems like they're chasing pink elephants and forcing us to partake in the delusion.

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[–] melfie@lemy.lol 50 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

What’s going on right now is that the TAM [ed: Total Addressable Market] and data center is growing just absolutely tremendously. And we want to make sure that, as a company, we help fulfill that TAM as well.

Your TAM is about to go bam, so cut the shit and make us some RAM.

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[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 45 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They(the companies) want AI to takeover so badly. They know they can control everyone if only we would embrace their slop. The idea we all have a terminal that has no storage and no computing ability that just allows us to access their slop remotely. For a forever fee of course.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 22 hours ago

currently its very useful for propaganda, thats why conservatives are all in on it.

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