Micron exited the consumer DRAM market in December 2025, leaving Samsung and SK Hynix as the only two major suppliers. It is now rumored that SK Hynix may follow Micron's lead, stopping the production of consumer DRAM and NAND chips.
Eh, it’s a continuation of the same idea. Remove the ability to do arbitrary compute from the hands of the people, let the corpos decide what you can and can’t do (and they have decided that the only thing you should be able to do is give hallucinating chatbots your medical history in exchange for predatory ads). Whether it is restricting what you can do with your own computer, or just restricting you from buying your own computer in the first place, the outcome is the same.
But the actual reason I see the connection is that big dogs like Apple or Microsoft will be able to get RAM from those suppliers (or build it themselves like Samsung), and will be able to sell you walled-garden “computer appliances” which only run approved software. But you won’t be able to afford to build your own computer from parts yourself, and won’t be able to install whatever you want on it as a result.
Think about the power Microsoft has when they have every business document on earth and an AI that can summarize vast quantities of them on an ongoing basis.
They’re taking control of free markets, of political movements.
I am sure getting the gist of all the knowledge in the world will be very useful. They’ll have the general idea of the kind of things they may or may not need or not need to do to accomplish anything!
Eh, it’s a continuation of the same idea. Remove the ability to do arbitrary compute from the hands of the people, let the corpos decide what you can and can’t do (and they have decided that the only thing you should be able to do is give hallucinating chatbots your medical history in exchange for predatory ads). Whether it is restricting what you can do with your own computer, or just restricting you from buying your own computer in the first place, the outcome is the same.
But the actual reason I see the connection is that big dogs like Apple or Microsoft will be able to get RAM from those suppliers (or build it themselves like Samsung), and will be able to sell you walled-garden “computer appliances” which only run approved software. But you won’t be able to afford to build your own computer from parts yourself, and won’t be able to install whatever you want on it as a result.
Think about the power Microsoft has when they have every business document on earth and an AI that can summarize vast quantities of them on an ongoing basis.
They’re taking control of free markets, of political movements.
I am sure getting the gist of all the knowledge in the world will be very useful. They’ll have the general idea of the kind of things they may or may not need or not need to do to accomplish anything!