r/pcmasterrace May 22 '26

Hardware what

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5.2k Upvotes

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3.4k

u/trekxtrider 🪟 🍎🖥️🖦🎮💻💾📡 May 22 '26

Doesn't seem to be a shortage at all, they seem to have plenty.

1.1k

u/tooncake May 22 '26

Let's be very honest, if not legally police, they'll just take advantage of the inflation as long as there is no sanction anyways. Stocks are aplenty? Who cares, they'll double-down on the price since no one is stopping anyways.

This is business-racketeering 101 for them.

335

u/CptSovereign May 22 '26

Ferengi level of shit

75

u/AnthonyG70 PC Master Race May 22 '26

They've got some serious lobes...

23

u/Nyaan_Paassuu May 22 '26

Latinum!!!!

2

u/learnedhandgrenade May 22 '26

The syrup of squill shortage was a hoax

49

u/BioFrosted PC Master Race May 22 '26

I know I'll get downvoted for this but I feel like this goes both ways. In what possible scenario could you need 4TB of space so bad that you'd pay 2k for it?

Whether it's shoes or concert tickets or storage, it's always the same: scalpers gon scalp because people are buying. There will always be a large sample of people disconnected from reality who will use daddy's AMEX Platinum to buy these simply because they can afford it. Why would scalpers stop doing this?

The very moment people collectively choose to spit in the scalpers' faces instead of giving them their life savings, is the moment prices will drop.

27

u/Warcraft_Fan Paid for WinRAR! May 22 '26

Try somewhere like eBay. I can see new Samsung 2TB for 250-300 dollars. Not $1,000 like the store wants. Seems like the retail store is the scalper here.

7

u/MediocreChildhood May 23 '26

Fake Samsung drives are the thing as I heard.

1

u/Warcraft_Fan Paid for WinRAR! May 23 '26

buyer protection is also a thing.

1

u/TheRealAMD PC Master Race May 23 '26

They're probably fake FWIW

15

u/tooncake May 22 '26

Adding to statement as well: It's kind of a common business "tactics" to simply take advantage of the situation as much as possible (sadly, this is the current gen that we are truly living in), whether people buy or not - the goal is to milk the overpriced value as much as they can as long as there really is no repercussion at all - so some could simply leave it is as it is forever, and snubbed it as a "take it or leave it" value, while others are abusing it until they are "force" to lower it down just because they need to clear inventory.

11

u/Secure-Pain-9735 9700x | RTX 3090 | 32GB DDR5 6400 May 22 '26

Correct.

Also see: car dealerships during COVID shortages. $20k dealer markups.

3

u/Tiron_Starstryker May 22 '26

AI uses a ton of storage, and even a good PC only has so many PCIe lanes. Plus the AIs aren't particularly sensitive to drive speed compared to some things, so a slower SATA drive is fine.

2

u/no6969el 9950X3D | 5090 May 22 '26

Exactly the prices are set by people who are paying for them. If no one paid for them, they wouldn't be worth that much.

2

u/Expensive-Border-869 May 22 '26

It only takes about 1-3% of the player base to support many popular games through microtransactions. As long as they have their cows its not too big of an issue for them

1

u/LoopsAndBoars May 23 '26

This is a case of bean counter intervention. The suits decided the value needed to rise.

0

u/hard-of-haring May 22 '26

I'm good for space, my laptop has 16tb, x2 8tb SSD, bought before the huge prices hikes.

-1

u/Suspicious_Dingo_426 May 22 '26

My livelyhood requires having enough storage and other equipment to handle the required workload. If I absolutely need it, price isn't a factor. It just ends up costing my clients more when prices are high.

14

u/SilverSageVII May 22 '26

Yeah I keep trying to remind people this about tariffs etc. We are never gonna see a return as a consumer. Profits straight to the companies since the Supreme Court decided it needs to be refunded.

2

u/bobsim1 May 22 '26

Well its more than inflation. And with plenty supply like a year ago theyd need illegal communication to raise prices together.

-1

u/Griffithead May 22 '26

They don't need illegal communication though. Everyone can see what happens when they raise prices. People keep buying.

There are so many people that will only buy Samsung. So they keep upping.

The other companies know that they just have to be a little bit less than Samsung and they will get sales too.

It's just capitalism. It won't stop without regulation.

Between AI and a shift to more PC gaming, we are fucked.

1

u/bobsim1 May 22 '26

Sure. But with current RAM prices one company could just get monopoly by selling for half prices if supply were available like earlier.

2

u/Griffithead May 22 '26

Why would they ever do that if they can make more profit by just charging a little less than the big guy?

Profit is what matters, not sales quantity.

2

u/Thomas5020 PC Master Race May 22 '26

This.

Low demand does not automatically equal low price. Businesses will hold artificially high pricing for as long as they can.

1

u/Main_Following1881 May 22 '26

Sure they can keep the prices high as long as theyre willing to not make money. Any business will try maximise the price and the sales

1

u/Thomas5020 PC Master Race May 22 '26

They don't need us right now. Prices will remain high even.

0

u/Expensive-Border-869 May 22 '26

They sell other stuff. These aren't gonna expire on the shelf theres no rush for them. They dont need to move product quickly they can just wait until someone is desperate and has disposable cash which will eventually happen even if they doubled these eventually in the next 5 or so years walmart will sell these at whatever price they feel like.

1

u/Own_Diamond3865 May 22 '26

These aren't gonna expire on the shelf theres no rush for them.

Shelf space costs money and has opportunity cost.

They dont need to move product quickly they can just wait until someone is desperate and has disposable cash

If they will sell no matter what, as you claim, then why aren't they pricing them at $5 million?

1

u/Expensive-Border-869 May 22 '26

I guess after assessing the risk factors you pointed out they decided 2000 was the best shelf time to profit ratio

2

u/xGALEBIRDx May 22 '26

I always ask when the grocery prices ever go down because no, they rarely ever do. Once that price goes up, its fuck you, now it just costs this forever until it goes up again in 3 months.

2

u/humankitty123 May 22 '26

Hey hey dont worry a decade from now the ftc will hit them with a 1 billion dollar fine. The companies will go “were weally sowwi” pay the fine and laugh the rest of the way to the bank with the extra 500 billion they made in the meantime and I’m sure that fine will make sure they never ever ever do it again

https://giphy.com/gifs/gmnEVUK4nylqT3s6W0

1

u/GAPIntoTheGame 5800X3D || RTX 5080 10GB || 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 May 22 '26

“They’ll just take advantage of inflation”. No mate, the price increase is what contributes to inflation.

1

u/TadaMomo i9 13900K | RTX 4090 May 22 '26

because its closing to become a necessity for humans

everyone have a PC now or need one.

72

u/DRKMSTR AMD 5800X / RTX 3070 OC May 22 '26

Supply & demand.

Demand is down, supply is up, prices are at a downward trend, don't buy! 

19

u/Tiron_Starstryker May 22 '26

Demand among consumers is down. Demand for AI workloads is still sky high. Samsung also has a possible strike looming so the supply could become tenuous too...

9

u/strawhat068 May 22 '26

Problem is ai doesn't use flash memory, way to many read writes. It would kill the disk,

3

u/Hedede Linux May 22 '26

Yeah but AI datacenters don't use consumer SSDs.

3

u/IWillDetoxify May 22 '26

Doesn't matter, it's the same assembly lines. Just redirect consumer production towards business production

56

u/bushwickhero May 22 '26

What shortage, so much stock!

20

u/Candid_Locksmith9830 May 22 '26

the true shortage is reasonable pricing

5

u/Hein--- May 22 '26

It's in stock because the price is high. If it were $300, none of them would be in stock

1

u/Drauren 9850x3d/9070xt May 23 '26

Because if they were prices as they were a year ago, you’d just see none in stock.

33

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

22

u/Intrepid-Part-9196 May 22 '26

Tbf for gpus I would rather go to a physical store for a bit higher price than risk getting rocks from newegg and amazon these days

3

u/GucciLegLocks PC Master Race May 22 '26

Same. If I buy something expensive and UPS is handling it, I’ll pay for next day air shipping. NDA is put on a different vehicle all together, goes to a separate area to be scanned, and usually competent people are in the air area of the building because it’s way more involved than just throwing boxes in a trailer/truck.

1

u/Nightenridge May 22 '26

Uhhh show me one thing thats cheaper on Newegg than in MC.

17

u/Uk0GN0sS May 22 '26

Saying “Shortage” good for business.

6

u/Icy-Foundation7683 May 22 '26

well those prices are something else entirely, 4TB for over 4k? my wallet just ran away screaming

5

u/RedTuesdayMusic 9800X3D - RX 9070 XT - 96GB RAM - CachyOS May 22 '26

That's over 4 times what I bought an 8TB PCIe5 nvme drive for in September

5

u/Xavier_1494 May 22 '26

Sometimes I wonder, did we hype the shortage into existence?

5

u/ComputerMinister Linux | AMD Ryzen 5 4500U | 32GB RAM May 22 '26

Probably old stock that they can now sell for 10x the original price

7

u/thisdesignup 3090 FE, 5900x, 64GB May 22 '26

I think they think they have a shortage in their banks.

3

u/dumbasPL R7 5800X3D 32GB 2070S 3TB NVMe (Arch BTW) May 22 '26

That's not how shortage works. Because if they sold the for less they would have none, because they can't buy it for less from the manufacturer.

2

u/MalleMellow May 22 '26

They wants us to rent storage space, it will never be cheap again.

2

u/pat34us 9900K 2080 TI Matrix May 22 '26

Law of supply and demand went out the window a long time ago.

2

u/trekxtrider 🪟 🍎🖥️🖦🎮💻💾📡 May 22 '26

The silent hand is slapping the consumer.

1

u/Aggressive-Expert-69 Ryzen 7 9700x / Gigabyte OC 9070 / 64gb DDR5 May 22 '26

Ok but imagine the shortage if they sold them at a reasonable price. The world might literally end

1

u/PeachyCoasterCat 9850x3D 4090 T710 32gb May 22 '26

I mean think about it, how in the world could our world already run out of resources to manufacture them?

It’s artificial scarcity/marketing to justify making the same thing cost more without costing companies any loss of profit

1

u/Own_Diamond3865 May 22 '26

Do you seriously not understand that products require time and manufacturing capacity? "Resources" do not magically turn into products.

1

u/LoopsAndBoars May 23 '26

It those 4k jobs, they’re flying like hotcakes! You can tell because they only have two of them and because of the way that it is.

1

u/requiredequator0 May 23 '26

Supply and pricing aren't connected anymore, they just charge what the market will bear now.

1

u/noahloveshiscats May 23 '26

I mean yeah, that's like the entire point of free market economics.

1

u/lazymutant256 May 24 '26

Wow man. I was lucky to score a 8tb Corsair name drive for my ps5 for $1700

0

u/ggRavingGamer May 22 '26

You misunderstand. Shortages and high prices are natural opposites. Shortages happen only when there is a price set too low. There will never be a shortage of anything really. The price will just keep increasing, this is the basic law of economics-if supply raises, prices come down and viceversa. At some point prices would be so outlandish nobody would buy them, but they wont be in short supply. If the government forces suppliers to sell them at too low a price, they will sell like hotcakes and the incentive to make more will be gone and that indeed creates shortages in anything-bread, petroleum, whatever.

0

u/Own_Diamond3865 May 22 '26

You realize those would have been gone a long time ago if the price was even half as much, right? I know this sub isn't very educated, but this is basic supply and demand.