alt Hacker NewsIf I understand this comment correctly, it's saying that Micron and the others would be better off selling RAM at below the price they could get, in order to keep competitors from deciding to enter the market.
Such collusion might well be a violation of anti-trust law, but in any case, it wouldn't work. If they decide to sell at below-market price, they must (by definition) be preventing some customers from buying by some non-price mechanism (eg, only selling to companies run by other members of the CEO's family). Potential competitors would then see an opportunity to sell to these excluded customers.
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Yeah there is no such thing as selling a commodity below its market price on the open market. Someone else will come and arbitrage that away, or it’s not an open market.
Are you seriously not aware of the existing history of the memory cartel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_industry_price_fixing
Micron started as the outsider busting in during a past RAM crunch. They more than any manufacturer should understand this.
Does 87% gross margins sound like that them lowering prices is tantamount to dumping?
It also ignores the giant CAPEX and OPEX required for any competition. This isn't banana stands or book publishing, or whatever.
These are billion dollar+ funded operations that take multi-years just to see if you can compete at the levels required.
All these comments show up every time, like there's a memory faerie land where you just put on your memory faerie hat and walla! Memory!
So bizarre.
> Such collusion might well be a violation of anti-trust law
The Memory cartel do not care about silly things like laws
Yes, one of those markets with infinite demand where supply has no impact on price. Those ones.
Not exactly, I think it's saying that Micron would be better off increasing supply themselves (and thus lowering prices) than waiting for a competitor to come and provide more supply to meet the higher demand.
If there was enough existing competition, that might be the right move, because if they don't increase capacity, a competitor probably would in order to gain more market share. But I think the barrier of entry for making RAM is high enough that Micron can probably get away with keeping supply low (and thus prices high) for at least a few years before a new competitor appears. Assuming demand stays high that long.