Due to high prices for hardware, some users are resorting to particularly brazen methods: They go into stores to detach and steal RAM from display computers. Vendors are responding and implementing precautions. The community is at a loss as to how it got this far.
Users report on Reddit that large providers and vendors are removing memory and sometimes other components from so-called display units.
Display units are showcase pieces intended to demonstrate hardware. This is meant to show what a running PC could look like in everyday use when the RGB lighting is on.
People stealing hardware from computers is not a completely new problem
What is the problem? Some users resort to the brazen method of detaching and stealing memory from such display devices. This way, they can “save” the high prices they currently have to pay for memory.
However, this situation is not entirely new: During the COVID pandemic, users also stole graphics cards from display computers to avoid high prices or to resell the hardware at a high price. Large retailers or supermarkets then took precautions and preemptively removed valuable components to prevent theft. As a user explains on Reddit:
[The hardware] is stolen and never replaced because it gets stolen again. This has always happened with all display pieces that have removable parts.
Despite the high prices, many people in the community absolutely do not condone such behavior. Although many vendors may have raised prices significantly, it is still theft and a brazen and wrongful behavior that some individuals display. It is unknown how many individuals tend towards such brazen actions.
Memory is becoming increasingly expensive. One user has now built their own RAM and saved quite a bit of money. However, DIY is only partially recommended, as it requires a lot of skill to build such RAM: A developer saves 140 euros by simply building their own memory
