David Oks
davidoks.blog · Personal blog · on HN since 2026
David Oks writes essays explaining the economics and institutions behind everyday things, like airlines, ambulances, Japanese firms, and smartphone prices.
What HN saysCommenters call his smartphone memory-price piece the best article on the subject and link his posts on airlines, Japanese companies, and ambulances as informative.
22HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
15stories submitted
192story points
3 months agolast shared
2026people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1AI is killing the cheap smartphone6 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 2Why Japanese companies do so many different things3 people · 80 points · first shared 2026 · 20 comments on HN
- 3Why American ambulance rides are so expensive2 people · 16 points · first shared 2026 · 4 comments on HN
- 4Language models are weird for the same reason human cultures are weird2 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 5Why airlines are always going bankrupt2 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · 3 comments on HN
- 6Seeing Like a Spreadsheet2 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 7Why I'm not worried about AI job loss1 people · 34 points · first shared 2026 · 26 comments on HN
- 8Many African families spend fortunes burying their dead1 people · 15 points · first shared 2026 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Why China got rich and India didn't1 people · 14 points · first shared 2026 · 8 comments on HN
- 10Why poor countries stopped catching up1 people · 13 points · first shared 2026 · 4 comments on HN
- 11ATMs didn't kill bank Teller jobs, but the iPhone did1 people · 8 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 12The era of declining global poverty is over1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 13A lot of population numbers are fake1 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 14How citations ruined science1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
simonw · 2026-06-24
The 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.
stuxnet79 · 2026-06-12
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
stephenhuey · 2026-08-18
Airlines are quite a special case. Learned a lot from this a few months ago:
https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankrupt
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 you purchased!
jgilias · 2026-07-15
Yes. 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.
loudmax · 2026-07-13
Incidentally, 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.
ambicapter · 2026-06-03
Memory 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
jacekm · 2026-05-24
There 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
skybrian · 2026-05-24
RAM 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.
djeastm · 2026-05-24
Relevant article posted on HN about this a few days ago: https://davidoks.blog/p/ai-is-killing-the-cheap-smartphone
aworks · 2026-04-02
Good link from the other day about spreadsheet impact on business https://davidoks.blog/p/how-the-spreadsheet-reshaped-america