Big tech ran out of ideas and have now begun to legalize their monopolistic takeover at an expedited rate
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
171 points (97.8% liked)
PC Gaming
14902 readers
536 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Just so people understand this story properly:
Kotaku, a 'game journalism' website... is writing an Op-Ed, based on the actual original reporting of a Youtuber.
Gaming Journalism, everyone!
Why the fuck isn't Kotaku maybe the ones doing actual investigative journalism?
Because they're all fucking hacks!
They are a fucking tabloid and undisclosed advertisment machine.
God fucking damnit.
Valve should start making ram 😁
If they start building a factory right this second, they might be able to get their first chips out in 2031.
Imagine how much good will and long-term profit any given manufacturer could generate right now just by creating consumer-facing parts at a reasonable price and refusing to cater their supply lines to datacenters. The right move now could buy loyalty for decades. People remember.
Not much at all. Consumers are cheap, their requirements vary wildly and they are hard to deal with and buy in small quantities.
I don't know about that. My time in customer service has taught me that it's actually pretty hard to win customers over.
A lot also don't, the low common denominator don't care about anything other then there consumer habits or if it affects them in the here and now.
Imagine how much good will and long-term profit
They'd generate loads of good will, which would be forgotten in an instant as soon as a something better or cheaper came along. Consumers are fickle.
Unfortunately there aren't a lot of companies manufacturing ram, and the handful that exists are all members of the cartel, and it takes decades to set up a new production. Also the cartel corporations are making much more selling to datacenters than they ever did selling to consumers.
Pretty sure thats actually illegal in the US because you are legally obligated to do what makes the board and investors the most money.
Only if it is publicly traded. A private company can do whatever they want, with some legal exceptions.
The need to act in the best interest of the shareholders, if they are making less immediate profits to make more gains long term they can easily make that argument. Convincing the board not to replace you and hire someone that will ride the bubble til it pops is a different story.
That's up for interpretation. Arguing the AI bubble will burst and that this sets up the company for an excellent position post-pop could be argued to eventually net the most money. But it's a hard sell.
It would just be out of stock immediately though
Yeah but they won't, because good will access loyalty isn't worth 10x profits right now, today.
Some would probably even argue that not extracting maximum profits today would leave them at a disadvantage against their competitors who are investing huge profits back into the business.
To be clear I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I'm just saying don't get your hopes up because at the end of the day they are all businesses.
There is too much centralization in the chain. Decades ago there were lots of memory manufacturers. But as the markets matured, and the work became more sophisticated, and big swings happened in the markets, consolidation happened. And many manufacturers just went away.
But yeah, you would think there would be room for that still. I still agree with you.
And many manufacturers just went away.
Because memory got too cheap on thin margins. We locked computer cases and made workstation cases out of thick steel ~2000 because of RAM costs.
If that sounds a lot like a cartel, well, you wouldn't be the first person to point that out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal
Something, something history rhymes and mind you that those found guilty got slaps on the wrist and then promoted within the industry.
They need to start hitting them with such steep amounts it hurts shareholders.
That would fix them overnight. ( This is all companies that break law's)
The CEO can reinvest his yachts to fabs his own.
The fabs wouldn't be ready for years, ram prices will go back down before then.
load more comments
(1 replies)
And Kotaku should write their own articles instead of ripping off Gamers Nexus
From my understanding, Valve would need to be hundreds of times more wealthy to be able to even consider manufacturing their own DRAM.
Edit: notably, this article seems to suggest that after significant government investmemt and with an already well-established knowledge and IP base, a fab costs around $15 billion dollars and optimisticly, a decade of construction. Given that Valve is starting from scratch, the price will be much higher. Chinese companies, backed by the Chinese government and using significant amounts of corporate espionage, have been trying to achive this for about 20 years, and are only just starting to catch up, nonetheless one (relatively) small software company.
Valve generated like 17 billion dollars "recently" according to a quick google search. Apparently they don't disclose their earnings. But how is that even possible to "need more money" that they have?
17 billions is pretty small change in setting up your own ram manufacturing.
Fundamental computer hardware like cpu/gpu wafers and the stuff that goes into RAM is EXTREMELY hard to make at all, let alone at any remotely competitive level. And the people currently running it in the world have had a LOT of time to get VERY good at it.
Instead of tens of billions, you'd need hundreds of billions just to get started. Plus, Valve probably doesn't want to try to compete and then get destroyed by one of those companies, essentially killing themselves in the process. They probably generally want to just stay in their lane and not overextend. They just started supporting a brand new entire operating system now, and that's probably enough, for now. Maybe in the future if everything is really successful?
The Chips bill meant to boost semiconductor fabs in the US was for 280 billion. And that wasn't even to get on par with what Taiwan was making.
Did you know that for every number there is in fact a larger number?
Try that argument at work. "Guys, we made enough money this year!"
load more comments
(9 replies)
But wait, I thought capitalism was about solutions, more demand causes more supply. Grade 8 economics was fun.
Large scale changes aren't instantaneous. We're not at equilibrium right now.
More RAM manufacturing plants are being built because of the demand, but it'll be years before any of them produce anything.
I mean these companies have the solution. Collude and price gouge for maximum shareholder and executive value. Just how capitalism was designed to do.
view more: next ›