Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM, in the context of a conversation about DRAM shortages and precisely why it is difficult for DRAM manufacturers to respond to the market price incentive to increase DRAM production. Even if you think it is bad that DRAM is currently expensive, as I do, that doesn't change the underlying fact about the world that Altman's comment reflects.

Thiel's comment is also pro-individual-ownership - in context he was talking about the danger that in a mass democracy the people as a whole would vote to have the government restrict the freedom and confiscate the property of successful people (particularly prescient in light of the recent California attempt at a billionaire wealth tax). RAM being expensive is better than RAM being rationed by a democratically-elected government so no one person has too much, as judged by the voting masses.

> Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM

no, he was lying by omission

"it's quite terrible" only if you ignore all the problems with plans they promote and measure it only in metrics Altman wants to measure, as they support his plans

Successful people are not successful without keeping unsuccessful people from success; inflation since Millennials were born is almost 300% and taxes have been slashed; takes 800k/yr now to have the buying power of $200k in the 1980s

Thiel has benefited from wealth being wielded by rich media owners to convince the masses decades long trends in deflation of buying power through inflation of costs are good for them

With such a system giving him a boost he was successful before Millennials and GenZ were adults or even born

Altman came along during ZIRP; being successful when the government is intentionally printing money is not really success

> Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM

Which might be true, I'm willing to accept that, but it does not change the fact his message was incredibly tone deaf.

Cost of living in general is through the roof for years now, many people haven't had the financial ability to meaningfully upgrade their computers for just about the same timeframe - first Bitcoin drove CPU prices through the roof, then GPU prices, once that died down due to ASICs there were a few fads that "mined" RAM, HDD and SSD, and in parallel to the latter Covid hit, disrupting supply chains. After Covid was somewhat over, the Russians invaded Ukraine, then we got the various MENA conflicts after Oct 7th, and now the Iran war is wrecking everything - and ever since AI entered the picture somewhat three years ago, first GPUs and now everything else has exploded in price. Entry level smartphones have all but disappeared. And don't forget our existing computers got less and less useful because first Microsoft pushed the garbage called Windows 11 onto everyone it could and second, everyone and their dog went for Electron resource hog apps.

For Altman to now say "your unused RAM could be of much better use in our servers" is like a giant fat fucking middle finger, telling us to sacrifice even more of our needs just for the opportunity of him and his fellow rich bastard friends to make more money, all while he and his fellow rich bastard friends are executing the setup of a financial crisis that will make 2007 look fucking tame.

> Thiel's comment is also pro-individual-ownership - in context he was talking about the danger that in a mass democracy the people as a whole would vote to have the government restrict the freedom and confiscate the property of successful people (particularly prescient in light of the recent California attempt at a billionaire wealth tax).

Oh for fucks sake. Taxes aren't theft, they provide for the environment that makes these rich fucks able to earn money in the first place. Thiel is worth 38 billion dollars. Even if you'd tax the guy 50% of his wealth, he'd still have more than one single human and their descendants can ever feasibly gamble away.

> RAM being expensive is better than RAM being rationed by a democratically-elected government so no one person has too much, as judged by the voting masses.

At least in a rationed system that allocates supply fairly, ordinary people wouldn't have to run with barely working hardware because they can't afford to buy something new and modern for once as all the new stuff is hoarded by the rich like a LotR dragon hoards his gold pile.

And as evidenced by this week's elections - the people are fed up beyond belief. Either we the people get some relief, the sooner the better, or the situation may indeed devolve into open riots.

> At least in a rationed system that allocates supply fairly

if you assume crazy fairy land that is not going to happen, then you can assume cheap and plentiful RAM for better results

How is that saying the quiet part out loud?

He literally said we'll own nothing and be happy

he said nothing about being happy

Easy: it's an open secret (the quiet part) that the rich fucks want us to rent everything and us own nothing. Real estate was the first to go unaffordable without taking up debt. Then came cars. Then phones. And now it's computers. Hell I've seen kitchen appliances for rent.

And now this mf'er (or to be more precise, alleged sf'er [1]) goes on the record to say it's bad if we the people have RAM.

Fuck him, fuck everything he stands for.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/20/judge-dis...

Maybe so, but unless you imagine a vast conspiracy of rich fucks pulling the strings of hardware vendors and/or governments worldwide, the former will still want to sell to a larger market even if some of their largest customers would prefer otherwise.

> the former will still want to sell to a larger market even if some of their largest customers would prefer otherwise.

Oh hell no. The hardware vendors want to make as much money as possible, with Micron going as far as to fully exit the consumer market entirely so they can suck as much money out of the AI market as possible.

How that one can fly by antitrust enforcement is beyond me.

[1] https://investors.micron.com/news/press-release/2025/Micron-...