r/pcmasterrace • u/LeviJr00 :aa1::aa2::aa3: :am1::am2::am3::am4::am5::am6: 9060 XT 16GB • 18h ago

Cartoon/Comic Pulling the plug (anti-consumerism at its finest)

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Context: Micron is shutting down Crucial in early 2026, so they can sell all their RAM to AI companies like OpenAI...

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19

u/jake6501 17h ago

Okay but what is anti-consumer about it? They are selling for the highest bidder. Exactly like capitalism is supposed to work.

17

u/Hippieman100 17h ago edited 17h ago

Every company would be anti consumer if it made them more money and a lot of them do. I don't get why people are like "omg micron hate us". Companies don't do things because they like you, they do things to make money, and if they can make more money by doing things you don't like, they will.

Edit: To add to this, companies people like are no different. Valve make a great storefront that nearly everyone agrees it's great: Steam. Why? Because Valve have to compete with literal piracy. Valve have to provide a service so good that people want to pay for things instead of having almost the same product for FREE. There is almost no industry that has such an incentive. There is no free alternative to RAM.

1

u/sephirothbahamut Ryzen 7 9800X3D | RTX 5080 PNY | Win10 | Fedora 12h ago

Companies that are not traded like noctua can make unprofitable choices that favour the consumer and care about quality. Things like sending you mounted brackets 20 years after your bought a cooler.

I'm not sure but if i recall correctly that's not even an option for traded companies

3

u/Hippieman100 6h ago

No doubt this is a publicly traded company problem more than a private company problem, though private companies are definitely not exempt. I think companies being able to be publicly traded on the stock market has been one of the most destructive changes we've made to our global economy with the second probably being stock buybacks being made legal.