this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Memory-maker Micron has found a way to keep prices for its products sky-high for another five years, by signing 16 “strategic customer agreements” (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with “a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle.”

Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company’s Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher.

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[–] Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz 178 points 1 month ago (53 children)

Hopefully Chinese firms recognize the gap in the market and increase their capacity.

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 month ago

They are scaling up but as with other things they will most likely scale to their inner market first, and then I doubt they'll subsidize a price depreciation to help westerners when they can get the profits for themselves

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

I'm in a pretty mercenary mindset about it these days TBH. I've got some money on the table, whoever can provide 32gb of RAM and three HDDs for my RAID at a price that's not ridiculous can have it.

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[–] hactar42@lemmy.ml 151 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org 83 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Remember they are traitors to actual customers when the bubble burtsts.

They should fail, totally, and vanish from the world.

[–] theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world 44 points 1 month ago

Traitors would mean they were ever on your side. Welcome to capitalism, bud. They've always been on the side of maximum profit, like all other corporations.

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[–] Asafum@lemmy.world 75 points 1 month ago

gross margin for Micron

Gross indeed. Fucking greedy scumbags

[–] Zink@programming.dev 55 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wonder if anybody has told Micron about what happens when customers sign a contract but then declare bankruptcy shortly after.

[–] Fedditor385@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Or what happens to the stock price once the temporary surge in demand fades or new companies enter the market and disrupt it.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Locks in"...if all of a sudden there was no demand you can be assured they would "lock out". Micron likes to put the boot to the throat when they have an advantage. Not someone I'd do business with.

[–] AEsheron@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah, everyone was paying to back out of their contracts as soon as the prices went through the roof. The customers will do the same when they come back down if they are stuck in these contracts.

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[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 39 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Five years is too long for the buyers. The AI bubble will burst before then and then the market price will drop as the inflated demand disappears, especially if this continues long enough for more production capacity to come online.

They might not have had much of a choice in making the deal, though. Micron has been extracting the absolute maximum they can out of this situation. Make a deal or get nothing. Their clients will remember, though, and flag them as an unreliable supplier. Once this ends—and these always end—they’ll likely have a lower market share and end up having to cut prices.

Micron is optimistic in saying the demand won’t start easing until 2028. A lot of the rest of the technology manufacturing industry is about to grind to a crawl if not a halt because it’s nearly impossible to get components. Some companies are already delaying product launches and I think a lot more are about to this summer as they realize what’s happening. If non-AI businesses start to slow, the whole economy starts to slow, the AI demand will falter and that’s when the bubble bursts. I’m thinking maybe by the end of this year, more likely next year.

When the bubble bursts I’m guessing at least a couple of the companies Micron signed SCAs with will fold and Micron won’t get anything.

[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 month ago

Interesting analysis. I was thinking the same, their customers might not make it.

About this point:

They might not have had much of a choice in making the deal, though. Micron has been extracting the absolute maximum they can out of this situation. Make a deal or get nothing. Their clients will remember, though, and flag them as an unreliable supplier.

Are the other two any better? If not Micron might get away with it. It doesn't strike me as a very competitive market.

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[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Isn't that called price fixing, and is generally illegal?

[–] brendansimms@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

its price fixing if the agreement is among 'competitors' - this is price fixing for a customer(s)

[–] Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

If there’s some collusion, sure, but you’d have to find a government body with the will and teeth to prosecute.

Nothing really against charging whatever you feel like outside of things like certain supplies during disasters. It’s shitty

Only if regulatory bodies do something about it.

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Wouldn’t this just be selling security?

You would enter the SCA if you want to secure your supply chain against the risk of inflated pricing. The risk would now be overspending if the market drops. Comparing the two risk profiles, an organization might decide that they have more stomach for overpaying a set amount over 5 years. As opposed, of course, to the risk of paying an arbitrarily expensive amount indefinitely as the market remains volatile.

So now, while planning out the next 5 years of business objectives, you can plan against a much more solid best/worst case scenario. That minimized uncertainty, which lets the business keep moving even if at a more expense pace.

[–] Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, but the fine is far lower than their profits here... so, it's only illegal if you can't afford it.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 7 points 1 month ago

"Cost of doing business"

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

This is just like selling / buying options in any other industry, e.g farming to buy something at a specified price in the future.

They've agreed to buy XYZ product at 123 time at a price between $100 and $200.

If prices plummet, they've still agreed to buy it at $100 (similar to selling a $100 Strike options PUT), but if prices skyrocket, they don't need to pay more than $200 (similar to buying a $200 Strike options CALL)

Anything in between is just the price, so if it's $150 then its just $150

It's not exactly the same as using options, but the rough idea.

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[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Software developers: more Electron and bloated frameworks are what the people want! Running 10 independent browser instances for simple chat apps is a great idea!

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[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 21 points 1 month ago

Padme: “…and then they’ll drop, right?”

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, I know who's gonna take a beating when the bubble pops and the market falls out from under them. What a stupid decision.

"Hey guys, this AI thing is gonna be like this forever. We'll never lack for insane demand ever again."

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[–] Pistcow@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Soooo if you raise the price sooo high then it lowers the price of barriers to entry. Congrats on maybe a year of monopoly before memory becomes a commodity like corn. Or AI crashes so hard that your customers refuse to come back. I feel like the later since using Micron memory for the past 30~ years.

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[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

I'm not buying shit unless I have to. And then I'll likely buy used.

[–] Korkki@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

Does it go something like this? Those companies who buy the NAND chips to make AI accelerators, SSDs and RAM for data centers are the Microns customers, like Nvidia. Even if they are in trouble and know that the datacenters are not being built, they can't cancel the deals because that would call the bubble into question. They will have to take any markup deal that Micron gives, them because if they don't there will be nothing for them nor Micron anyway.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (5 children)

the barrier to entry for ddr can't be so high that someone can't buy a fab machine and undercut them can it?

[–] darklamer@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago
[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

is there any good reason to charge more? I remember a long time ago, the people who run youtube had to have new technology invented to be able to store the videos on there.

is anything like that happening with ram chips?

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