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PayPalAs RAM prices explode and availability becomes an issue thanks to AI companies, Micron announced their Crucial consumer business is no longer a thing.
Sent out in a press release today Micron said they've decided to "exit the Crucial consumer business, including the sale of Crucial consumer-branded products at key retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide". Shipments will continue until the end of February 2026 - but after that, it's over as they will "continue to support the sale of Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial channel customers globally".
As for why? You probably guessed it - AI! From the press release:
“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” said Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology. “Thanks to a passionate community of consumers, the Crucial brand has become synonymous with technical leadership, quality and reliability of leading-edge memory and storage products. We would like to thank our millions of customers, hundreds of partners and all of the Micron team members who have supported the Crucial journey for the last 29 years.”
Crucial did RAM and SSDs, so all of it will be going away from us lowly consumers.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: walther von stolzingYou're right. What I said was simplified (and vinyl probably was a bad example). The company satisfying customer wants has to economically survive, which might e.g. lead to luxury products due to small scale.Quoting: EikeIf enough people do want it, they sell us what we want.Assuming that it's profitable, no matter the wants, or even the *needs* of consumers; and also assuming that possible satisfactions of such wants/needs can't be manipulated. In consumer electronics, 'products' are slowly turning into further 'revenue streams', or portals for indefinitely extended rentals.
For example -- "If enough people do want" ... perpetual licenses as opposed to subscriptions ... would "they sell us what [they] want"? They wouldn't, and they don't; and those smaller companies that do sell perpetual licenses weasel their way out of it the moment they get bought out.
As luxury/specialist items, vinyl players, or even penny farthings can be produced at smaller scales; what's at issue here is mass production at scale, of things that have everyday use -- things that you can't just "vote with your wallet" not to buy, because you *need* them; things that you can't get from the 'competition' ... because there's no competition when it comes to the large-scale trends like what we're seeing with electronics right now. 'Competition' is at best a short term illusion, when the model requires the bigger players to keep swallowing the smaller players, or at the very least constrain the possibilities with which they have to work.
Some examples having been given are not touched by this, though. There's no strong reason to not have multiple USB ports at a notebook. If people want them and buy them, it's easy for manufacturers to provide them (and maybe sell the laptop for 20 bucks more).
(Which might be the reason they're not "gone" at all: https://preisvergleich.heise.de/?cat=nb&hloc=de&xf=893_2&asuch=&bpmin=&bpmax=&v=k&plz=&dist=&sort=r&bl1_id=30 )
I BTW am looking forward to have a monitor that's a full USB hub with many device inputs and being able to attach at least two computers. I'll attach all my USB stuff to the monitor (which happens to stand conveniently right in front of me), attach the work laptop and the home desktop to it and switch everything from one computer to the other with a single button. I consider this a nice technology development.
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