Top all-time · #3539
David Oks
Personal blog · davidoks.blogeconomicshistory
David Oks's personal blog at davidoks.blog covers economics and history. Since 2026, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 25 times, most often “AI is killing the cheap smartphone”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link David Oks's long-form essays on industry economics, including Japanese corporate practices, airline margins, ambulance pricing, and the memory chip shortage driven by AI demand.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The world is what it is.
Most-linked posts?
- AI is killing the cheap smartphone6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2026-05-21
- Why Japanese companies do so many different things3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-22
- Language models are weird for the same reason human cultures are weird2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-21
- Seeing Like a Spreadsheet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-03-28
- Why airlines are always going bankrupt2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-05
- Why American ambulance rides are so expensive2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-07-09
What Hacker News says?
It is the Asian model of capitalism. David Oks did a great article about this focusing on Japanese firms in particular [1] [1] https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
Comment linking /p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
on “SpaceX's president is floating a Tesla merger as the company begins trading”Submitted Why Japanese companies do so many different things as a story · 80 points
HN discussionAirlines are quite a special case. Learned a lot from this a few months ago: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankru... I've had plenty of bad airline experiences and wished they gave me more for my trouble, but clearly they are unable to at current margins. If you want the market to provide a better service, it already does: you can pay tons more to fly private, either a charter or your own jet…
Comment linking /p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankrupt
on “Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction, because AI”Submitted Why I'm not worried about AI job loss as a story · 34 points
HN discussionIncidentally, here's a recent article about how the economics of ambulances are broken in the US: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-american-ambulance-rides-are If municipal emergency services in yout area don't cover ambulance rides, that subscription service might not be a bad idea.
Comment linking /p/why-american-ambulance-rides-are
on “Cyberpunk Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels”Submitted Why American ambulance rides are so expensive as a story · 16 points
HN discussionMemory makers are reluctant to increase fabrication (high cost of capital and boom/bust cycle leads to bankruptcies being common in the industry), and the memory required for AI (HBM) requires more of the production inputs than other types of RAM, thus squeezing regular DDR RAM even more. Long-form article describing this in more detail: https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
Comment linking /p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
on “32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building”Submitted Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThe best article I've seen about that is this one by David Oks (ignore the headline, the content is much better): https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone > It was only in 2025, as memory prices began an unprecedented surge, that the memory makers started to build new fabs targeted at HBM, all slated to start producing chips in 2027 or 2028.
Comment linking /p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
on “For Most of the World, Open-Source AI Is the Only Way Forward”Submitted Why China got rich and India didn't as a story · 14 points
HN discussionRelevant article posted on HN about this a few days ago: https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
Comment linking /p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
on “Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs”Submitted Why poor countries stopped catching up as a story · 13 points
HN discussionThere is a good article (featured on HN a couple of days ago) that explains the issue: https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
Comment linking /p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
on “Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs”Submitted ATMs didn't kill bank Teller jobs, but the iPhone did as a story · 8 points
HN discussionRAM is a boom-and-bust industry, so memory manufacturers were reluctant to invest. Here's a good blog post on the economics: https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone Maybe long-term purchase agreements from big buyers might have helped convince them it's okay to build, but apparently it didn't happen.
Comment linking /p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
on “Memory has grown to nearly two-thirds of AI chip component costs”Submitted Language models are weird for the same reason human cultures are weird as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGood link from the other day about spreadsheet impact on business https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america
Comment linking /p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america
on “The OpenAI Graveyard: All the Deals and Products That Haven't Happened”Submitted Why airlines are always going bankrupt as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYes. There was an article somewhere about how in a Japanese factory it gets pulled thousands of times a year, but only 2 in an American one. EDIT: Found it: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many Search for “Ford plant”, second occurrence for that particular bit. The article made rounds on HN a couple months ago.
Comment linking /p/why-japanese-companies-do-so-many
on “Andon (manufacturing)”Submitted The era of declining global poverty is over as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A lot of population numbers are fake as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI is killing the cheap smartphone as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Language models are weird for the same reason human cultures are weird as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How citations ruined science as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Seeing Like a Spreadsheet as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
