Link: https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/12/memory-makers-are-slaves-to-the-boom-bust-rollercoaster-and-the-ai-boom-is-the-wildest-ride-of-all/5269549

But if the anticipated demand for AI falls short, everyone loses and memory vendors will find themselves at the bottom of a bust cycle to end all bust cycles.

A vital thing to understand about enshittification is that most often it is the result of repeated "pump and dumps" of complex systems where conditions are discontinously alternated with such whiplash that they destroy all of the small bits and only leave the shitty big bits left to pick up the pieces and rebuild.

To rephrase my argument, enshittification is part of the same thing that Naomi Klein points to in The Shock Doctrine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

But if the anticipated demand for AI falls short, everyone loses and memory vendors will find themselves at the bottom of a bust cycle to end all bust cycles.

RAM already wasn't cheap as it was; even if prices come back down, memory manufacturers will have raked in billions in supplementary profits with their core business still intact. Consumers are the only ones getting screwed over in all of this.

RAM manufacturers are increasing their production capacity to meet demand, but that investment takes time to pay itself off.

Even if demand merely returned to normal, they would suddenly have to shut down all the extra production capacity and liquidate what they can. That would likely result in a financial loss, probably causing them to fall into debt with creditors. Those creditors can then profit from the debt collection.

But it's worse than that. RAM lasts a long time. When the bubble bursts, demand will plummet as AI companies liquidate their holdings and saturate the market. Using 10 year old RAM is perfectly fine for many applications. This means the price of RAM will likely drop beneath the cost of production for years.

RAM manufacturers will hardly be able to move any product at a profit, only the absolute highest end applications. All production lines they currently have will have to be shut down and it'll take years before they can return production to normal. Bankruptcy is extremely likely. Or it would be if not for billions of dollars of government bailouts. Because with autonomous weapons, RAM is a strategic resource.

The only people that profit here are the banks and the billionaires.