Yeah, it's easy to jump to the collusion theory, especially with this industry's, let's say, history. But honestly, I think it's less of an evil conspiracy and more just good old-fashioned fear mixed with inertia. These guys remember getting burned hard by oversupply cycles where they were left with mountains of useless chips. Nobody's gonna drop tens of billions on a new fab that could become a pumpkin in three years if the AI hype train just slows down a little
And on top of that fear, you have the pure technical reality: you can't just flip a switch and start pumping out wildly complex HBM instead of mass-market DDR5. That's like trying to retool a Toyota factory to build Bugattis overnight. So you get this perfect storm: a massive, near-vertical demand spike hits an industry that's both terrified of risk and physically incapable of moving fast. So yeah, they're absolutely milking the situation for all it's worth. But it's happening less because they're master villains and more because they're both scared and incredibly slow
And on top of that fear, you have the pure technical reality: you can't just flip a switch and start pumping out wildly complex HBM instead of mass-market DDR5. That's like trying to retool a Toyota factory to build Bugattis overnight. So you get this perfect storm: a massive, near-vertical demand spike hits an industry that's both terrified of risk and physically incapable of moving fast. So yeah, they're absolutely milking the situation for all it's worth. But it's happening less because they're master villains and more because they're both scared and incredibly slow