This framing is journalistic malpractice. Using the term blamed implies room for doubt where there is none, it's a clear and provable driver of this issue. We desperately need public funding for journalism, as long as outlets rely on private investment to function there will always be this kind of manipulation and bias infused into news media.
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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Funny thing, we had that back before the 80's. Yeah Republicans killed it. and now we're in the shit show you see all around.
Huh, I wonder why they would do that... So Weird (tm). Surely unrelated to the tRump republicans axeing PBS funding in this current term...
those who promote ai usage and even pay for it ought to be blamed too.
While I can see some benefits in using llm for some things, way things currently are the negatives way outweigh the positives. Using it should be something to be ashamed about so this shit collapses sooner and maybe we can get some peace. Maybe once all the commotion dies down llm could become useful tool, but if its tied to destruction of our way of life (planet dying, economic disruption, no components for regular people) then it just has to go.
Alternative is we just submit and hope our owners dont abuse us too much.
This is how they kill home computing and force everyone to bezos net with your drumpf Gold terminal ($390/month with KKK membership)
Fuck ALL these peoole.
Blamed?
More like responsible. Alongside big tech
Apparently there is a huge demand for storage, both RAM and disk. Oh, and GPUs... So what happens when large number of people are looking to buy stuff? In time, I think there is a silver lining here...
Demand went up but supply hasn't adjusted, and maybe won't, to meet it. I'd imagine the parts manufacturers would be worried about the bubble bursting as much as we are cheering it on.
I don't mean existing manufacturers necessarily. Unfortunately there are no certainties, but I'd say give it some time. These chips are (or at the very least becoming) strategic commodities, so the greater the squeeze the more appealing the business case will be. Besides, both the US and EU want to grow their chip manufacturing capacity and it's not like there is no investment money available. So at some point production capacity will grow.
Don't discount China in this race either. Gamers nexus did an interesting video about china's push to become a contender in the DIMM market too.
Guess it's all speculation for now anyway.
The the demand stays elastic and the supply doesn't then you can just scale the pricing as much as you want. Saying you're sold out for the year is literally telling everyone in advance the prices will continue to be manipulated .
On the upside, homelabs are going to have a glut of high capacity, barely used server hard drives to choose from then this AI/data centre bubble eventually bursts?
If it bursts, that is. I have a fear that people behind AI have grown so savvy of the bubbles, that they have a complicated plan to avoid it, and artificially uphold it with the help of bribed/blackmailed politicians.
Pretty much. So much trading is done automatically by algorithms. There's no panic selling anymore because the human factor is gone.
Of course something will have to break eventually.
As every industry before them did.
The irony is as they bid up the price of all the hardware, they are probably making their AI platforms more likely to fail due to being more expensive than their value.
We can only hope that their businesses crash hard before any of these deals come to fruition and then when the hardware has nowhere to go we can all "buy the dip" so to speak.
To be clear, I know most of this stuff will be specialized server hardware, but hopefully it all crashing down will help get more people into self-hosting and working on community resources and networks instead of having everything live in the cloud.
I know most of this stuff will be specialized server hardware
it actually won't be, at least not for the hard drives. the prevailing strategy for quite some time now is to just use the cheapest available disks and deal with the failures on the software level. those disks will ultimately fail anyway and the increased price for some super-duper enterprise reliability server disk is not really worth it.
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Western Digital chief Tiang Yew Tan told analysts "We're pretty much sold out for calendar '26. We have firm purchase orders with our top seven customers."
the dow is 50k and 37% of the market is made up of those seven
freaking financial human centipede
I can't wait for it to crash and burn, this bubble is getting so ridiculous.
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These companies are publicly traded...
The people who run/own the AI companies would have been complete idiots to not invest in the hardware companies they were going to make these purchases from before making those purchases.
But 100 million in Seagate stock, then announce you just signed a contract buying up supply.
Your company may overpay, but you personally just made a shit ton of money. Which is the why you want your company to succeed
As a bonus, the news that you're overpaying to buy up all the hard drives, doesn't hurt your company it helps it.
There's no way to monetize it anyways, the product is the stock price. And this move makes the company seem confident, which raises stock price.
That's not even getting into the long term problem that even if AI fails, were seeing a huge migration in computing power from individuals to private corporations. That's a big deal even if AI dies tomorrow. And they have a lot of motivation to never let us get it back.
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so much wrong with this title.
- it's not AI, it's LLM slop bullshit
- it's not the software at guilt here, it's the sacks of shit running those companies who plan such data centers
- blamed? No, those shitheads are totally and absolutely responsible for this clusterfuck.
They've gone so far as to claim responsibility.
You mean brag about it?
I was trying to use the same language the news uses when a political group claims resposibilty for a bombing.
I'm glad I bought an 8 TB HDD about a year ago as an investment, it's now $50 more expensive a year later. I don't plan on ever filling it up, but it's been helpful, and good insurance to have if I ever create a project that requires that space.
It's nice how AI datacenters step by step swallow virtually all available hardware resources to provide digital services to users who won't be able to use those services due to the lack of available hardware.
Hardware will be available, silly. ^†^
You will have the "freedom" ^‡^ to choose from the hardware vendor* you want. Like always! ^‡‡^
^†^ ^For^ ^$49.95^ ^per^ ^month.^
^Terms and conditions and government social score apply.^
^‡‡^ ^Authorized and approved by the department of national security and intelligence gathering agencies and the billionaire technofascist bros clubh^
that's okay they will replace users with AI. it's going to be AI all the way down
I doubt offering AI services to the public is their goal.
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I was able to update 2 of 3 devices early last year, but couldn’t upgrade my old custom build. I did that due to possible tariffs; didn’t even think about this “AI” BS. Thought may as well just buy a custom build now. Wanted to wait another year, but I won’t be upset no matter what happens with prices if I get it now. I’m not sure my old girl can outlive the return of easily available PC parts. At least I also bought some extra storage over a year ago.
Fuck AI
I get paid on the 27th, I need two more 8TB drives to complete my NAS, my local retailer had 50+ in stock earlier this week, and now the drives are no longer even listed.
Fuck sake...
I bought 2 8TB drives last week and had to check if they were still in stock at the same retailer and they are, but the price have gone up with 23%...
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I recently checked on the price of the used 12TB server drive I bought a couple years ago. It was 80 then. It's 260 now. Same seller.
Good idea. I just looked at a drive I bought six months ago and it's up 40% or so. Wish I'd have got two now.
I'm guessing you got similar drives to the ones I got. I paid ~$72 each (4x 12TB), and now the same HGST DC drives from the same seller are $220. Just glad I got them when I did, even though now I have to continually prune the data so it all fits within this forever limit.
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I bought a 22tb hdd from serverpartdeals in late December of 2025. Its now $100 more expensive, I'm glad I read the tea leaves in time but this sucks.
28 TB is now sold out in serverpartsdeals, guess we have to wait till the bubbles pops.
I got a 16TB HDD for 300€, yesterday I looked at it and it was 800€ (apparently discounted from 1000€ lol)
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I will absolutely remember the companies that are saying “fuck the consumer” when I go to purchase anything going forward.
Welp, I guess I'm all out of money for new tech. Time to travel or find a new hobby.
These sound like great ideas. Additionally, I find that making the most of the hardware I already have can be really satisfying, too.
This feels like you're about to try and sell me on linux.
It does sound like that, doesn’t it. I’ve been down that rabbit hole, but currently my only Linux device is a steam deck. Apple stuff for most things, pc for AAA gaming.
So, no. I like Linux, but I really meant that I increasingly manage to find some satisfaction in getting „my money‘s worth“ out of my hardware instead of finding excuses to buy new stuff.
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