I don't expect prices for RAM or SSD to get cheaper anytime soon. From what I've seen, production capacity has been bought out for a couple years already.

Datacenter capex decreasing means that the chips have to go somewhere else, so it doesn't matter too much that the fab capacity has been spoken for, if the demand side is slacking prices will decrease.

OpenAI aren't the only ones who were increasing their datacenter capex.

No, but they are the ones who placed an order for 40% of the world's supply.

Sure, but they have competitors who'll be more than happy to pick up whatever OpenAI ultimately doesn't buy. Point being, from POV of suppliers, there's no reason to re-retool for consumer production.

There was a point in time when crypto miners bought tons of capacity from TSMC months and years out and reneged on those contracts. Means nothing.

Eventually Chinese RAM will get good enough and then it'll flood the market, pushing prices down.

It has been good enough for long time. CXMT has long made DRAM and NAND modules that are just as good as anyone else's, sometimes for half the price. The only thing they can't match is flagship products of Samsung.

However because of that, prices for Chinese-made DDR5 have risen in China (and globally) along with the prices of all others, just with a slight delay.

Apple says: Not so fast.