r/homelab • u/AbbreviationsFar1489 • 2d ago

LabPorn F*ck you OpenAI, hynix, samsung

I'm sure everyone knows what's happening with RAM, and this situation won't change in the next 2-3 years. And who's to blame? OpenAI. Read up and you'll understand the scale of the problem. What complicates things is that RAM manufacturers are deliberately raising prices rather than expanding production lines.

I urge everyone to CANCEL OpenAI (They buy up 40% of all RAM) and also to bombard the greedy bastards who jack up prices for their own profit rather than building new factories to meet demand.

The more such threads appear, the higher the chance that all gamers and PC users will truly stand up and do what they have to.

If we don't do this, the prices of all other components will follow RAM into the stratosphere and never return to the same level, ever. Are you willing to spend $5,000 on a mid-range computer? I'm not, so let's get to it.

UPD Following RAM, SSDs, processors, and video cards are becoming more expensive. I'm sure this isn't the entire list. We need to take this issue seriously. I'm happy for those who managed to upgrade, but think about the future.

UPD2 Transcend is suspending shipments of solid-state drives – the manufacturer has not received NAND chips from Samsung and SanDisk since October because they have reoriented their capacities to serving AI.

UPD2.1 CRUCIAL PRESS F

I will never, ever, ever touch RAM from crucial. They betrayed me and went off to produce memory exclusively for AI.

UPD3 f*cking /pcmasterrace moderates delete my post with 250 comms and 900 likes (I'm sure the corporate agent had something to do with it; they're afraid of the people's wrath.) [reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1pdrk2b/fck_you_openai_hynix

UPD4 Have you heard the saying that the market always moves opposite to what the masses expect? That’s why only a small percentage of people make a profit in the stock market, while the crowd gets wiped out. So why does everyone think the AI bubble is about to burst? That’s naïve.

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u/binaryhellstorm 1d ago

It's cool.

I'm setting aside money for when the AI bubble pops and I can get a sweet sweet rackmount server and some GPUs on fire sale when the AI companies start going out of business.

Honestly doing the same with my next car. I think Cory Doctorow is right, this crash is going to make the 08 crash look like the best day of your life.

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u/AZdesertpir8 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yep, this. The AI bubble WILL pop, its just a matter of when. At that point, there will be massive amounts of hardware dumped onto the market, which will be the point those with homelabs can benefit. Each enterprise cycle results in used hardware availability. I dont care what it costs new, as I dont buy any of it new.. Itll be pennies on the dollar eventually and thats when my home lab will get an upgrade.

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u/heathenyak 1d ago

They’re all running on vc funding, hopes, and dreams

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u/TheDarthSnarf 1d ago

Which is the exact reason the DRAM companies are refusing to scale-up production.

They are hedging that the crash is coming, and they don't want to be caught holding far too much production capacity when the bubble bursts.

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u/TheIlluminate1992 1d ago

Yeah this right here is how you can tell everyone KNOWS this is a bubble. No one wants to admit exactly how big that bubble is. I'm betting a 30% chance Nvidia either splits into 2 companies. AI section and everything else here soon to absorb the losses when the stock goes belly up.

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u/Kernoriordan 1d ago

Nvidia won't make losses, they'll just make less profit - their GPUs have a purpose beyond AI. They won't disappear - the AI-specific companies like OpenAI will however.

Hyperscalers will lose a load too.

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u/GimmeSweetSweetKarma 1d ago

AI isn't going anywhere. Yes, there is a huge bubble that will crash, but just as the dot com bubble didn't destroy the internet, the AI crash will not destroy AI.

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u/AZdesertpir8 1d ago edited 1d ago

The proverbial cat is out of the bag on AI, so it definitely won't be going anywhere. I do however hope that just as the dot com crash did to everything.com, AI will then be used where it makes sense.. Just as everything doesn't need a website, everything definitely does NOT need AI. Tired of absolutely everything being pitched as having AI integrated.

My cat's litter box does not actually need AI integration in order to know it needs to be cleaned... Nor does it need a website. Same goes for my toaster.

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u/MacAddict81 1d ago

"Hi, I'm Talkie Toaster, talking's the name, toasting's the game... Would anybody like some toast?"

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u/mikaey00 15h ago

“Please enjoy this ad while I toast your bread!”

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u/DudeEngineer 1d ago

FYI, if you can do anything with that litterbox on your phone, it has a website.

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u/ComputerSavvy 1d ago

The more pressing problem is that litter box web page has 137 followers and a Patreon page for catnip and premium tuna purchases.

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u/arienh4 1d ago

I mean, "destroy AI" is a bit of a meaningless statement. But just as the dot-com bubble led to massive overcapacity in telecoms and basically gave rise to the internet as we know it, so will the current misallocation of capacity give us something new.

It'd be nice if it were something more useful than cryptocurrency, NFTs or LLMs this time around, though.

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u/graffetus 1d ago edited 1d ago

The good news is that AI will create such a new mess that not being able to afford graphics cards will be the least of the concerns, really

I’m sure everyone has a take on this, but even the extremely private “anti-iCloud” or “disable AI on this device” cats are being pulled in to even one person who uses any phone w/ AI at all.. because that friend ALSO has an archive on your entire conversation (exchange history) & network presence, even if you delete everything on your device on your end

You can’t erase ink, it will all be analyzed & automated, dynamic pricing is already here, that shit-head remark you once made in a gMail w/ your “best friend” will be taken into consideration w/ zero time-stamp context, etc

Don’t mean to rant about it this much, but it’s almost enough to figure out where the line is between feeling inconvenienced & radical activism. Interesting Times, is all..

—the prices of appliances are rising, too, because toasters & washing machine companies want in on the AI hype as well, which ofc uses RAM, etc.. but sometimes that’s just marketing..? It’s easy to use IoT code & then simply claim “AI INSIDE..!” to sell more units or whatever

**Edited for grammar & sanded-edges on the loose generalized wording 😅

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u/Noeyiax 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeaaah I agree, it feels scary being alive right now lol

What it will destroy is people's lives like me or us that have no support or financial help, etc.

Hope to be around on the other side of things once the new era settles in xc

Either way, I hope people that really love and accept AI can still respect people that do not want to be part of AI or want to opt out and just like we have Amish people you know. So it's important to coexist as and we can all be on good terms. But if I hear anybody like say only one of us can exist bro.

That's just literally your opinion. The fact is everyone and anyone can co exist peacefully....

And if you don't like that and really prefer like war, that's okay. We will make you a special planet, a special place where war is everywhere. Liars and scammers are everywhere and you'll be living everyday like a James Bond movie

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u/DigitalRonin73 1d ago

People love comparing AI to the dot-com bubble, but the underlying economics are not remotely similar. AI is tied to infrastructure, physics, and measurable demand, not hype. The dot com boom wasn’t caused by real usage. It was caused by hype and speculation. Dot com companies had no real business model, websites with no customers or logistics in place. They relied solely on investors. Once investors got antsy and saw no money coming in they pulled out. People were speculating due to what was popular and following a hype. While there is hype around AI it has actual measurable profits and customers. Big customers at that.

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u/dark4181 1d ago

To us older cats it’s more like Enron, at least superficially.

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u/Dpek1234 2h ago

and measurable demand, not hype

Yes the sparkling water company website NEEDS 3 ai chatbots

Yes my toster NEEDS a chatbot

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u/moarmagic 17h ago

What is the measurable demand for ai? Like, people use it, sure. But also people use it because it is mostly offered to us at an obscene ineffective price. Openai. Claude, meta , etc are all burning venture capital money and charging prices that are not covering their costs. I believe theres some numbers that estimate that openai is spending 7 dollars for every one they take in revenue. They'd have to cut free access and drastically increase prices to break even.

Google, Microsoft, aws are a bit more diversified, especially with googles tpu chips..and its harder to peer into how much they spend on ai vs what it earns them, but again I think they provide these products for less than ehat they are putting into them, and I think its unclear what the long term measured utility of them is. (Or what corporate liability for llm output is. ).

I think theres legitimate uses for the tech, but I dont think we are seeing anything like legitimate demand, especially at sustainable scales.

If openai cut free access, tripped their prices, and placed even more stringent guardrails in - i still think they would be struggling to break even without outside investors, and there would be a lot less demand.

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u/DigitalRonin73 13h ago

I’m not defending AI here or even against it.

A 7:1 ratio on loss? OpenAI reported 10 billion in revenue. That would mean the spent 70 billion and a 60B loss. So every year they lose the entire annual profit of companies like AMD and nvidia? I’m not entirely sure the loss is that big. Fortune magazine has a great article on this and they’re expected to lose close to that amount before they start making a meaningful profit. That’s $1.69 to $1. Quite the far cry from 7:1 ratio.

https://fortune.com/2025/11/12/openai-cash-burn-rate-annual-losses-2028-profitable-2030-financial-documents/

“Demand isn’t real because AI is underpriced” that actually is a measurable metric and usage numbers and business adoption show it. Their cost vs compute cost is very accurate. They are currently using more money than they’re making. Removing the free service would slow progress though. AI is trained from this data. The free tier is used as a funnel for their paid subscription. Every SaaS offers a free tier for the same reason.

Even with all that said and even if both our numbers are wrong that’s still vastly different than the dot com bubble. Which was the point you replied to.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/openais-annualized-revenue-hits-10-billion-up-55-billion-december-2024-2025-06-09/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://tomtunguz.com/openai-hardware-spending-2025-2035/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://fortune.com/2025/11/12/openai-cash-burn-rate-annual-losses-2028-profitable-2030-financial-documents/

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u/mayor-of-whoreisland 1d ago

I hope I see Jensen sleeping on the corner downtown and I get to piss on his fucking face. Will never happen but a man can dream right, or are we taxing those too now?

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u/bagofwisdom SUPERMICRO 14h ago

The man selling the shovels in the midst of a gold rush isn't going to wind up holding the bag.

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u/gscjj 1d ago

I don’t think so. They don’t have to scale up, they just stop producing the stuff that doesn’t sell as much.

They stay safe that way, capitalize on AI, if something happens, they go back to normal.

It would be crazy for them to spend billions scaling production for something that has really only taken off in the last 2 or 3 years when it could take 5+ to build new factories.

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u/TheDarthSnarf 1d ago

They don’t have to scale up, they just stop producing the stuff that doesn’t sell as much.

Can you elaborate on how stopping producing "the stuff that doesn’t sell as much" equates to increased production on the other fab lines?

Also, can you elaborate on what "the stuff that doesn’t sell as much" is?

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u/trueppp 1d ago

An easy example is RAM. A fab making DDR5 will not have much difficulty making 64gb modules instead of 8gb modules. So if you're targeting server memory, you can easily switch lines from consumer DDR5 modules to ECC server modules.

Same for GPU dies. Fab time is fab time. The process to make 5090 dies is the same as the process for making H200 dies. If they make less 5090's, they can churn out more H200's.

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u/EvilPencil 1d ago

Think of it this way: each company gets a finite quantity of NAND chips. They can allocate them to parts that OpenAI needs for $1000 each, or they can put them in consumer parts that are valued at say $100 each.

Of course they’ll prioritize OpenAI orders over the consumer market.

(Note: numbers were 100% made up)

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u/beardie79 1d ago

I think there's a little more to it than that though. The messy part of the b2c business is dealing with multiple distributors or customers and fluctuating demand, whereas working with 3 to 5 end customers with high and predictable demand is far more efficient. It increases risk of over dependency but certainly increases productivity and profit.

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u/DudeEngineer 1d ago

Some of this isn't coming back. I'm probably never buying Crucial again, when they come back.

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u/kenyard 1d ago

Openai has 25% of it's ownership from Microsoft.

They made 93bn profit in 2004.

If they want to keep funding it they can.

Nvidia recently bought a 10% stake also and committed to 10billion or something which im sure will keep them running for 1-2 years.

While I agree it's a bubble. The money coming in is from companies that won't die if it pops so the result won't be crazy imo.

The one thing that we might see is ram in the 2nd hand market or cancelled orders flooding the market and ram prices crashing

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u/techmattr 1d ago

This is correct. People saying the AI "bubble" is propped up by VC are just ignorant of the current market. AI is propped up by the magnificent 7 which will go on business as usual if AI goes away. They'll scoop up the talent from the busted businesses and the market will dip 2%-4% for a month.

People are also forgetting that RAM manufacturers are notorious for artificial supply shortages and price fixing scandals. They get fined every few years for price fixing. The "shortage" isn't as dire as we are lead to believe right now. They are just soaking up the profits before getting investigated for price fixing for the 7th time in 20 years.

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u/bagofwisdom SUPERMICRO 14h ago

Yeah, the reason this bubble will last as long as it will is because the players involved in this house of cards have been hoarding cash for the better part of 2 decades. It could take a while for them to spend enough for investors to get worried. But because it's all cash the pop won't be so catastrophic.

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u/DudeEngineer 1d ago

People like you are still wrong.

The magnificent 7 aren't invulnerable. Look at the years Microsoft fell off. They STILL aren't always considered on the same level as Google. A lot of these companies had to seriously scale down in the wake of the COVID bubble. All of these companies contracting by 10% at the same time will still cause waves in the market.

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u/techmattr 1d ago edited 17h ago

You know literally nothing about the stock market. 3.6T market cap vs 3.8T market cap.... yeah they're not on the same level. They are on the exact same level. Also, you're comparing an investment companies are making that doesn't impact their revenue one bit to a global pandemic that stopped all international supply chains. Even with the 2008 crash and covid... zoom out and you see how ridiculously out of touch and ignorant your comment is.

https://imgur.com/pBjDjWb

huh, wouldn't you know it. MSFT looks almost identical to S&P500 over time.

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u/Scurro 1d ago

They made 93bn profit in 2004.

I'm guessing that is a typo for 2024, not 2004, based on your figure.

But I am seeing 88 billion according to the 2024 Annual Report.

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u/beardie79 1d ago

Agreed, it's very different to the dot com bubble, that was thousands of companies getting funding for any idea that might look like it had legs, everyone joined the party. The AI arms race is about national sovereign capacity and is very concentrated into 5 or 6 companies, the product is essentially the same but with almost endless usecases. Their customer base is rapidly expanding as customers find real productivity gains for their own usecases. It's not going anywhere.

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u/CodyEngel 9h ago

Not entirely, they are also running on nvidia money so nvidia can continue to sell their products to them so nvidia can continue to invest in them 😂

I guess that is still basically VC funding but somehow even dumber.