Just don't change your phone every year. Bought a cheap Xiaomi 4 years ago and as long as it doesn't explode I'll use it forever
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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Exactly.
Phones don't age the way they used to. For most people, new phones offer little.
If they'd learn to simply reset it when it goes wonky from installing a million things...
I'm hard on phones from a software perspective - I do a lot of testing because I'm the family IT. I've always used 2 year old phones. My current phone is a Pixel 5 running a Lineage fork, and it works great. I'll replace it when hardware (other than screen battery) dies.
Those RAM prices will drop like a rock soon. When AI investments are shown to not yield returns on investment, the investments will plummet, and at that time RAM production will be higher than ever.
So if you can, hold out a few months on buying anything where RAM is a factor.
The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid.
And I know you aren't investing here, but the point is that if you're looking for things like bubbles to pop when you expect it, don't. This could last for years yet if there's enough will for idiots to keep buying.
This could last for years
Just like my phone
When I bought my phone I wanted to keep it for 5 years, I have 3 left.
The bubble has been going on this entire year and more. The difference is that now the people that created the bubble are beginning to recognize that there may be a slight problem with profitability.
The question is how soon.
The bubble can go on for a long time with circular financing schemes and it has full backing of the US gov.
It's worth pointing out that lack of RIO has been a thing for a while now.
Even Sam Altman is recognizing that profitability is a bigger problem than he originally thought.
I think investments could already be slowing down, but of cause this is also a pissing contest among the richest people in the world.
And they may think the one that can stay the course will be the ultimate winner.
So I'm not sure this race is decided based on reason, because billionaires tend to be megalomaniacs.
So you may need to buy a new battery for your old phone if you want to avoid the high RAM prices. π
Unfortunately its my understanding from this article that the type of RAM being demanded by AI data centers isn't the same as standard DDR5 consumer memory.
I assume that means it won't be possible to directly reallocate those chips to the consumer market when the AI bubble bursts. The manufacturers will have to switch their assembly lines back to consumer chip production and then supply will slowly ramp up as those facilities come back online.
While you are partly correct, the RAM used in AI datacenters is not the same shape as DDR5, they share a supply chain: The silicon that makes that RAM is being diverted from "consumer", or even most "on-prem enterprise" RAM (DDR4/5/+) to datacenter RAM.
Memory manufacturers have been reallocating production capacity away from consumer products toward these more profitable enterprise components, and Micron has presold its entire HBM output through 2026. [emphasis added]
Because of that change in allocation, there's a lower supply without a (much)lower demand, and the prices of consumer RAM will eventually rise to meet what the AI datacenters are willing to pay per unit of silicon. The shape doesn't matter very much. This change in supply has already had very visible effects in the consumer DDRX markets, like 100%-increases-in-a-month-visible.
That smartphones and other devices with RAM haven't felt this yet is reasonable. They locked their manufacturing prices in before the spike in price, so there is a lag. That price increase will be felt by the consumer, though. We're going to be hard pressed to compete for memory against these companies willing to throw billions of dollars around. Next year's flagship phone price will be a gunshot.
The really sad, annoying, rage-inspiring part is that modern consumer goods never drop in price. When DDR6 hits $1k/8GB, or something like that, "they" will know some of us are willing to pay that price. This line only goes up, and AI datacenters are doing irreparable harm to consumer electronics as an industry.
Think about this: What is NAND Flash made of? We're already seeing SSD prices rise too, especially in the NVME flavor. SD cards for your camera, cartridges for your switch, your fucking fridge. They all have silicon in them and this AI supply chain is guzzling silicon the way it guzzles power and water.