Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are already sold out for the entire year, says Western Digital : pcgaming

[-] ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 2 points 44 minutes ago

Sorry no, the CEO is lying.

What the financial accounts show is that orders for the calendar year have been filled. Orders are NOT sales.

The company prepares a manufacturing budget for the year and has to fill the orders usually by March, otherwise the budget needs to be redrafted.

It is normal for orders to be filled by this time of the year.

Orders can be withdrawn, and frequently are, the buyer has to pay a financial penalty but they usually just add this to their sales price.

The other BS story about only 5% of sales going to consumers is also a lie. Most sales are to PC manufacturers and merchants, that is not AI firms - there are NO hard drives in data centres, they are miles too slow !

[-] who@feddit.org 1 points 35 minutes ago* (last edited 8 minutes ago)

there are NO hard drives in data centres, they are miles too slow !

I suppose that might true of some data centres, but certainly not all. Backblaze and the Internet Archive are obvious counterexamples.

Good points otherwise, though.

[-] abcdqfr@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Ignorant loaded question, are there no other sellers to fallback on?? WD or Seagate or nothing for this world?? Where is the foreign competition? Europe, Asia, anywhere... Or has WD/Seagate effectively captured the global market?

[-] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

I used to be saving a lot of money. But with this shit I need to buy another 8tb HDD while I still can.

[-] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago

HDs are too slow for AI itself, so I can only assume that this is an indication of just how much data those AI services are farming from people.

[-] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're literally making sure that we gamers/consumers cannot own a PC and must rent from the cloud.

[-] luciole@beehaw.org 25 points 1 day ago

Big tech is gradually seizing all means of computation. Fuck that.

[-] Cerothen@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

I'm not sure buying all the RAM, SSD and HDD capacity for years is gradual.

But I do agree it's a problem.

[-] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 hours ago

They are rehashing Rockefeller's method. Rockefeller got ahead in oil by making it impossible for his competitors to do business. He would buy all the available drilling equipment and oil barrels even if he used only a fraction of them. Basically denying his competitors the ability to properly drill or store oil for processing and sale.

[-] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 day ago

When do we start boycotting any companies that behave like this? We need a fucking class-action lawsuit against this behavior.

[-] starchylemming@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

check your ETFs if you invest in those

look where they invest

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Even if you boycott WD, the AI companies are spending 18x more than the entire consumer market.

This is where any sensible country would call for antitrust.

The externalities and consequences from this are going to fuck up the world economy, hard.

[-] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago

WD? They are already not planning to sell to us.

I guess AI companies? I'm already not buying anything from them. They also supposedly operate at a loss. I guess all the AI tech bros pay them, but they aren't easy to persuade otherwise.

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Never, because the entire tech sector is a cartel and nobody else produces this tech at this capacity and capability. You basically have to completely swear off of electronics and the Internet entirely.

[-] blazeknave@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Ummm.. we're kinda being forced to boycott already so what does calling it intentional change?

[-] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I think it's a post-bubble-pop boycott. These manufacturers are not ramping up production because they know the demand won't be permanent. So when things return to normal, whenever that is, we continue to not buy their products.

The problem is this relies on two things One - people actually remembering Two - Data centers, enterprises, and OEMs, who make the large majority of HDD purchases also boycott.

[-] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 4 points 1 day ago

At this point it’d be all of them, but unless you’re running a data center buying drives by the hundreds or thousands there’s not a lot of impact you can make.

[-] FishFace@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

What does a boycott achieve, exactly? What are you suing them for, exactly?

[-] gasgiant@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 day ago

Western Digital just gets added to the list of companies that won't get a penny from me. When they inevitably try and come back begging for sales from the consumer market.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 hours ago

There won't be any companies left.

[-] pomfegranate@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago

While you're here, could I ask for a short list? I'm buying a few replacement parts right now and I'm already avoiding Crucial

[-] gasgiant@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 day ago

I've only got 3 at the mo. Western Digital, Crucial and Nvidia.

Nvidia is mainly because of their price gouging and general fuck you to gaming.

[-] AceBonobo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

HP has been on my list for a very long while

[-] verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 4 points 23 hours ago

Dot com bubble people:

*first time?

[-] ArmchairAce1944@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago

I was there, Aragon... three thousand years ago...

[-] belated_frog_pants@beehaw.org 13 points 1 day ago

This gonna go with all of the unused nvidia cards in the corner until they can find enough electricity?

[-] sexy_peach@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago

They're going to innovate so hard with that extra security and all their inventory already sold, right?? 2x production next year, amazing new features?

[-] klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 4 points 1 day ago

Hah... Haha... Hah... Ha... sigh

[-] blazeknave@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

A year ago I felt like I never needed to purchase hardware again. In the last few months it's been constant. This sucks.

[+] neidu3@sh.itjust.works -11 points 1 day ago

At least they're somewhat useful, as opposed to that harddrive-destroying block chain stuff a couple of years back. Chiacoin, or something?

[-] klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 11 points 1 day ago

I mean. Useful how? At least you can but drugs with crypto. Can't buy drugs with AI.

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

A fancy autocomplete is miles more useful than a shitcoin that you can't even use for buying drugs. The only thing it did was double the price of harddrives and cause a mountain of ewaste.

[-] klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 1 points 4 hours ago

Right, it can generate child porn, tell kids to kill themselves, and tell you to put gasoline in your pasta sauce while while also quadrupling or more the price of hardware! Much better!

I'm not even sure where you're getting the idea that you can't buy drugs with crypto, though, because you absolutely can???

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I specifically referred to Chiacoin, as the topic was harddrives, not blockchain as a whole.

[-] klymilark@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol 1 points 3 hours ago

Ahh, I somehow missed that, my bad. I'd never even heard of that one holy shit

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

They claimed that it was a more eco friendly coin, as it didn't use GPU (and thereby not much electricity) but instead it caused harddrive prices to jump, due to excessive wear on drives. May for saving electricity, and instead causing a fuckton of e-waste, I guess.

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago

Crypto never really used hard drives that much besides a little to store wallets

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