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Mac mini price surge

The irony is that prices are basically going up because of AI, and most of the AI features are just gimmicks that we don’t even use. Yet we’re now indirectly paying for all of it.

You pay for AI whether you want it or not.
 
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Price rationalisation gets you nowhere. Either you need the product, either you don’t. If you’re asking it for yourselves, maybe that means initially you can’t afford it.
 
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whitby said:
What I want to know is why costs for all parts of the supply chain seem to be going up. I understand (even if I find it reprehensible) why we have a RAM and solid state storage shortage, but we have products whose main components are not dominated by RAM and SSDs being increased in selling price by 15 to 50%.
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Wholesale prices for DRAM have increased to 6.5x of what they were at the low point last year, and NAND to 5x. It’s even starker on the spot market, where you see 9x and 8x increases respectively.

Most of the new DRAM fabs being built won’t hit full production until 2028, so the situation will remain dire until then. For NAND (SSDs), the situation should already improve a bit earlier, in 2027. However, “improvement” doesn’t imply that we’ll ever return to 2024 price levels.
 
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whitby said:
What I want to know is why costs for all parts of the supply chain seem to be going up. I understand (even if I find it reprehensible) why we have a RAM and solid state storage shortage, but we have products whose main components are not dominated by RAM and SSDs being increased in selling price by 15 to 50%. This means that there are other factors at work here. I tend to think that companies that have been operating at lower margins see an opportunity to raise prices on the back of the noise concerning tariffs and increased pricing of RAM and SSDs.
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The short answer is you are subsidizing the data centres which were all built on credit. There is no consumer shortage. It’s about getting as much as they can, anyway they can before the bubble pops (publicly) and it all comes crashing down.

Most of the big players have tens billions owing in upcoming interest payments that no amount of circular financing can get them out of. Time to pay the piper.
 
theluggage said:
Back in June 25 I bought a 2TB M.2 SSD stick from Amazon for £99. I think, at the time, going from 256GB to 2TB on a Mac was typically £600.

Today, a 2TB stick is going for £230+ vs £1000 for the Apple BTO upgrade.
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By fortunate coincidence I bought the 2TB SSDs that are the first stop in my backup system a couple of years back when they were at about their cheapest ever, and I thought that was a lot of money.

Now they are 3-4 times the price, and rising. 😳
 
QuarterSwede said:
This is all speculation because we don't know what their margins actually are. They could be scaling it due to their cost increase only, we just don't know.

Also, the mini is still not the most expensive it's ever been after inflation adjustments. Inflation exaggerates everything and makes it hard to compare costs of anything, especially when it happens so quickly.

View attachment 2656766
Source: ATP

The company I work for is raising prices as costs go up and we aren't increasing prices above what are margin target is. However, customers think we're taking advantage of them during the current climate so we're taking the brunt of the disdain. In reality, we aren't making any more % of money than we were. We still have to make payroll, keep the lights on, and pay our bills. Businesses aren't built to lower their margins since all of their operating costs are built around those and they certainly aren't there to act like a non-profit. It sucks for everyone.
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Nicely done chart.
 
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