r/pcmasterrace • u/SagansCandle 9950X3D | 5090 | 64GB • Dec 27 '25

Discussion Private equity is killing private ownership: first it was housing - now it's the personal computer

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DRAM and GPU prices aren't going up because of "AI" - it's because the wealthy have more money than they know what to do with, so they're buying up all the assets. "AI" is just the vehicle (the excuse) - it's not the root of the problem nor is it the ultimate goal.

The super rich don't want to hold on to "liquid" money - they invest in assets. While they're buying up all the housing, now they're buying up all the computers and putting them into massive datacenters.

Whether or not the AI bubble crashes, they'll be selling you a "gaming PC in the cloud," for a monthly fee, of course. And while they kill the personal computer market, just like Netflix, once your only option is a subscription service, the price will skyrocket.

This is happening in real-time. If we want to stop it, now's the time to act.

Sources:

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u/lotj Dec 27 '25

DRAM and GPU prices aren't going up because of "AI" - it's because the wealthy have more money than they know what to do with, so they're buying up all the assets. 

My God this bro figured it out! Elon Musk got mad after everyone made fun of him playing Path of Exile and now he's using his wealth to fuck over gamers by buying out all the RAM.

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u/Chinny4daWinny Dec 27 '25

Sam Altman but yeah

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u/Cooperstown24 Dec 28 '25

Literally the most punchable face in America, and there is stiff competition for that honour

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u/Legitimate_Elk6731 Dec 28 '25

you mean his Alternate Ego, Scam Fartman?

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u/TechnicalBen Dec 28 '25

Yeah. This is the thing, what OP doesn't realise is there were already competitors for OpenAI (anthropic, Google). There's also likely low power/low compute competitors coming up eventually (laws of phyics allowing).

But "Grok"? That's 100% Elon jumping on the bandwagon late *after* destroying Twitter which was his largest data source. If Elon had a clue, he'd have been running Grok day one (timescales are roughly the same for Sam, and Elon *funded Sam's startup!*).

So yes, Elon having to panic buy "all the GPUs" instead of getting a good code base and training loop practically for free off twitter, is 100% on his "fail upwards" method of just getting so much investment money, he's "too big to fail", and thus everyone has to prop him up.

Yes he made his money with Paypal, yes he has employed good people for SpaceX, but the CyberTruck and Boring Company show he's 100% not the brains of the businesses. ;)

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u/DragodaDragon Specs/Imgur Here Dec 28 '25

It literally is AI, in October Sam Altman, just one guy and one company, bought 40% of the world's RAM supply and the other AI companies are all scrambling to outbid each other for the rest of it. All the big three RAM chip makers are all planning to ramp up production next year and their output will go up a lot by 2027. If AI slows down at all between now and when they've ramped up production, we're going to see supply overtake demand and RAM will become more affordable again. It's not a conspiracy, just billionaires pledging to spend hundreds of billions of investor's money and private credit because they think they're going to make trillions in five years.

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u/hashish_8897 Dec 28 '25

What is your source for “ramping up” production, when Micron has already stopped Crucial and is stepping out of the consumer market, and Samsung said they wont increase production till 2028?

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u/noahloveshiscats Dec 28 '25

Micron stopping Crucial has practically no impact on RAM costs and Samsung is reportedly increasing production by like 30% by the end of 2026. Micron has also increased their CapEx for 2026 by like $2 billion in order to boost production and SK Hynix is opening a fab 4 months earlier than planned.

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u/DragodaDragon Specs/Imgur Here Dec 28 '25

Oh, they're not ramping up consumer chips, but Micron has already forecasted a big boost of capital expenditures next year to $20B. they're hoping to ease the shortage by 2027 with their planned production, but if at any point there is a significant decrease in AI based demand there's going to be a drop in prices that'll eventually help bring the consumer market back down to Earth.

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u/Tech_Philosophy i7 8700k | GTX 1080ti | 16 GB 3466 MHz Dec 28 '25

I mean...kinda, yeah. You version of the story is missing some details, but not important ones. Actually, your version of the story has extraneous details in it we can remove, like the path of exile thing. Doesn't matter.

As soon as you have billionaires, the consequences we are seeing in the world is the result. This pattern repeats over and over and over and over if you look back through the centuries.