Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are facing a new U.S. lawsuit alleging they engaged in DRAM price-fixing. The plaintiffs contend the companies coordinated a shift toward High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and discontinued older DDR3 and DDR4 production to artificially restrict supply and inflate prices. The Hacker News discussion reveals deep skepticism regarding the case. Many commenters argue that current price hikes are a natural byproduct of skyrocketing demand for AI-driven infrastructure and that memory manufacturers are simply prioritizing high-margin products to avoid the financial volatility of previous "boom-and-bust" cycles. Debate persists over whether this constitutes illegal collusion or merely "tacit collusion" and rational market behavior. Critics of the lawsuit note that similar 2022 litigation failed due to a lack of evidence of an actual agreement. Conversely, some participants believe the industry’s consolidated nature—dominated by only three major players—creates an environment ripe for abuse. While some suggest that state-backed competition (such as China’s CXMT) or internal fab investments by buyers like Apple could eventually break the oligopoly, others maintain that the extreme technical and capital barriers to entry make such a transition unlikely in the near term.