dell The Madness has begun

[MyPC8MyBrain]

There is another consequence coming out of this landscape that few vendors seem to be accounting for.

This pricing behavior fundamentally changes upgrade psychology.

For decades, the PC and workstation market relied on a simple pattern. CPUs advanced, prices were tolerable, and users chased the next generation because the platform cost made sense. Memory was an afterthought, not a gating factor.

That is no longer true.

When customers are forced to buy systems loaded with 64GB, 96GB, or 128GB of memory just to remain functional, that memory stops being expendable. It becomes the anchor. The sunk cost people protect.

The result is predictable.

Instead of chasing a new CPU with marginal gains, users will sit on older systems that are already fully populated with expensive memory. Upgrading to a new platform now means rebuying RAM at inflated prices for single-digit performance improvements.

That math does not work.

So unit sales slow. Refresh cycles stretch. The traditional excitement around new CPUs fades. The market shifts from progression to entrenchment.

Ironically, the attempt to extract more value per system accelerates the opposite outcome. Fewer systems sold. Longer lifespans. Less incentive to move forward.

In practical terms, memory pricing has become a brake on innovation.

People will not discard fully loaded, capable machines just to step into a new socket with unaffordable RAM and negligible gains. They will optimize around what they already own.

That is how a market stops moving forward not because technology stalled, but because economics made progress irrational.