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A social network where everyone’s a bot

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1 year ago

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A social network where everyone’s a bot

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 53, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been reading about Beyoncé and Rosanna Pansino and Bowen Yang, pouring my life back into Todoist, watching the end of The Grand Tour, catching up on some My Brother, My Brother and Me episodes, seeing if the Pixel Recorder app can replace my trusty voice recorder, and moving Headspace to my homescreen to see if it helps me meditate more. (So far… no.)

I also have for you a truly wild new pair of AR glasses, a Batman-adjacent show on HBO, a great new book about the end of Twitter, a funny twist on social networks, and much more. Lotta good new TV this week! Let’s do it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you super into right now? What should everyone else be reading / playing / watching / buying / downloading / building out of Legos right now? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

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  • SocialAI. The reaction to this “social network” for iOS, where you post and a thousand AI bots immediately reply, was so funny. Some people loved it, some hated it, half seemed to think it was a joke. It’s not a joke, and it’s actually a really thoughtful take on how to interact with LLMs. It also feels alarmingly similar to being on actual social networks these days. Maybe even better.
  • Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. An excellent addition to the canon of books about Musk’s takeover and overhaul of the social network we once knew. There’s a lot of great new detail in here about the chaos of becoming X, too — a really good read.
  • Simple Snapchat. I’d love to tell you to buy Snap’s new Spectacles, but they’re ridiculous and also not available for regular people to buy. But you will be able to get Snapchat’s new design, which is so much cleaner and more approachable than the app has been in recent years. I’m not sure it’ll win many new users, but Snapchat is still one of the best messaging apps out there.
  • The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. The AirPods 4 got all the shine this week, but I’ve been a fan of Bose’s earbuds for a while — they sound great, they have great battery, and I love the new “Hey headphones” wake word on the new model. And at $179, these are a solid Apple alternative.
  • Omni Loop. The read on this time-travel movie starring Ayo Edebiri and Mary-Louise Parker seems to be that sticklers for continuity will be frustrated but there’s some good and thoughtful stuff and a lot of fun to be had. I will be having that fun ASAP. 
  • The Penguin. “Gritty Batman show on HBO” is all you need to tell me for me to be fully in on The Penguin. The reviews so far are a bit mixed — I’ve seen “best show in forever” and “kinda meh,” and a lot of people are comparing it unfavorably to The Sopranos. Personally, I can’t wait.
  • Tripsy 3.0. I’m traveling a lot this fall, so I’m back on the hunt for a good place to put all my confirmation numbers, flight details, and expenses. Tripit is fine, but Tripsy looks way better. I’m also into the map view, which is a surprisingly helpful way to plot out a day.
  • Agatha All Along. WandaVision is the only Marvel show I recommend to people who don’t care about Marvel because the whole thing was so unusually structured and smart. This spinoff sounds just as inventive and just as cool. More Kathryn Hahn is always a good thing.
  • UFO 50. A bunch of developers in 2024 decided to make a bunch of games that look like they’re from the 1980s. Taken together, what they made is kind of a historical document about gaming but also just, like, a bunch of really fun retro-style games. Such a cool concept.
  • “The Mark Zuckerberg Interview.” You probably saw the pictures from last week of the Acquired podcast hosts interviewing Zuck at the Chase Center in San Francisco. The resulting 90-minute episode is… kind of awkward in spots but also really revealing in spots. I don’t think I’ve heard Zuckerberg talk through his own history as a CEO like this before.

Screen share

Alex Goldman, the excellent podcaster and former cohost of best-tech-pod-ever Reply All, has a new show! It’s called Hyperfixed, and basically, Alex’s job is to fix people’s problems of all kinds. The first two episodes are silly and deep, and this show is going to be great.

I asked Alex to share his homescreen with us as his new show launches because if there’s one thing I know about Alex, it’s that he’s a person of many interests and obsessions. (I always enjoyed him posting about songs he made in his attic, just to name one example.) I was curious what his phone would say about what he’s up to right now.

Here’s Alex’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The wallpaper: A picture of my kids being cool on the beach.

The apps: Camera, Weather, Settings, Notes, App Store, FaceTime, Amazon, Proton Mail, Find My, Overcast, Patreon, Koala, Messages, Google Voice, Gmail, Safari.

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I know my homescreen is a mess, but I have long since given up on trying to organize it. It has reached an uneasy stasis in which I know where everything is, and it’s been a while since I’ve downloaded an absolutely essential new app.

Everything I need is on the front page: from games to exercise stuff, apps for watching TV and playing music, social media platforms, and so on. My go-to apps are Notes (every morning, I make a bulleted list of things I need to get done), Voice Memos (it’s super convenient if you’re thinking of an idea or a good melody pops into your head to just go ahead and record it before it’s long gone) and Threes. Threes is a game where you try and combine blocks of the same number on a playing field without running out of space, and I have truly not gotten further in the past three or four years, but I still play it like four times a day. Just out of nervous habit. And then Overcast is the podcast app. Everything else is lame in comparison.

I also asked Alex to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

  • Pinball Map. I love pinball. But loving pinball means you’re a pinball snob and you like certain games better than others. For me, the mid-’90s Midway/Williams pinball games were a renaissance, so I’m constantly trying to find copies of Attack From Mars, Medieval Madness, Twilight Zone, Monster Bash, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Bride of Pinbot. Fortunately, the Pinball Map helps me locate them.
  • Koala. Koala is an incredibly powerful sampler app. You can record sounds directly off your phone or load sounds in, or rip sound directly from a video. It has nearly all the functionality of the classic Roland SP-404 Samplers, except those are $500, but Koala is around $5.
  • Erica Synths’ LXR-02. A cheap handheld drum machine that you can load sounds on to or make sounds with. I am very much a dude making little beats on public transit.
  • WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. A blog for a nonprofit radio station in New York City that was shut down almost a decade ago but is full of fantastic obscure recordings, comics, and bizarre culture stories. Probably most famous for being the only place you can find the story of how Paul Simon allegedly stole a bunch of songs on Graceland from Los Lobos.

Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads. 

“Funny timing that you’d mention Short Film YouTube three days after I discovered a channel that’s a horror treasure trove. The channel is called Vintage Eight, which is by a film professor from the University of New Orleans by the name of Paul Catalanotto. His most popular videos are The Tangi Virus, The Oracle Project, and The Human Trial, which are also conveniently more interconnected than other videos on the channel.” — Drake

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“Hild is the best historical fiction I’ve ever read in my whole life. Anyone jonesing for Game of Thrones but IRL (ish) who is also a fan of Tolkien’s references to ancient languages of Britain / Anglos / Saxons / old Norse will love it.” — Christopher

“Caravan SandWitch is a wonderful cozy game. It’s on everything and is just lovely.” — Iain

“Played around with NotebookLM from Google. One fun but helpful use case is to take research papers and generate podcasts. I’ve been reading a bunch of complex ML papers as an engineering student, so I convert them into podcasts and listen on my commute. Certainly interesting TTS application.” — Kruti

“In the most recent newsletters, someone recommended the No Rolls Barred YouTube channel but neglected to mention their best content: Blood on the Clocktower. It’s a social deduction game by The Pandemonium Institute for 7–20 (!!) players. Think like Werewolf or Mafia, but more fun. There’s endless content on YouTube that I can’t stop watching, and I love hosting big parties for it.” — Greg

“With Today in Tabs on hiatus, Caitlin Dewey’s newsletter Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends has become the most dependable curated reading list around. (Also don’t miss her excellent 10-year retrospective of G*mergate.)” — Kevin

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“After years of loyalty to Things 3, I bit the bullet and moved over to Todoist. Natural language input is a big factor, but also fed up with long lists in Things — kanban in Todoist breaks things up nicely. I do miss the UI of Things though.” — Scott

“It’s been great following along with RocketJump on their Patreon as they write, plan, and produce their independent action-comedy film! They go really in-depth on everything from location planning to studio pitch decks.” — Josh

“I can’t stop playing Astro Bot. It feels like a love letter to 30 years of PlayStation, and having been a PlayStation fan my entire life, every level just puts a smile on my face.” — Nick

Signing off

On Wednesday, I was at the Made on YouTube event in New York City (the crowd was made up of me and like 200 extremely cool and fun creators), where CEO Neal Mohan and a bunch of other executives rolled out some new features. But forget the new features — the absolute highlight of the event was the singer / songwriter / creator D4vd, who talked about an AI project and then did a live performance of his mega-popular song, “Here With Me.” It was awesome, and I’ve been reading about and watching his videos ever since. Here’s a great GQ interview with lots of details on his story, here’s his TikTok, and here’s his YouTube channel.

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To be fair, D4vd is already very popular, so maybe I’m the last one to discover him. But I figured I’d share just in case. I’m a huge fan.

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Technology

It’s MAGA v Broligarch in the battle over prediction markets

Published

7 hours ago

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February 19, 2026

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It’s MAGA v Broligarch in the battle over prediction markets

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington. I hope everyone got to celebrate George Washington’s birthday in their preferred manner: skiing, staycationing, subscribing to The Verge if you haven’t already, etc.

Prediction: this is going to be a mess

Political alliances are rarely permanent, so it’s somewhat predictable that the MAGA-tech bro alliance seems to have fallen apart in the span of a single year. Which side the administration would actually choose, though, was more difficult to foresee.

Last winter, it appeared that two groups were in a tenuous relationship, held together by Elon Musk’s shameless execution of the DOGE agenda and Big Tech signing massive checks to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuits against them. But last night, the Trump administration made a choice: the money. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that they would sue any state who tried to regulate prediction markets like Kalshi — even the Republican states.

On Tuesday, the CFTC filed an amicus brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, officially opposing an onslaught of lawsuits filed by the states against betting markets like Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, and Crypto.com. (The latter two, known primarily as cryptocurrency exchanges, have partnered with Kalshi and created a standalone prediction market called OG, respectively.) But unusually, the brief was accompanied by a threat — posted on X, of all places. In a video directly facing the camera posted on Tuesday night, sole CFTC chairman Michael Selig asserted his commission’s authority to regulate prediction markets and stated that the federal government was prepared to sue: “To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: we will see you in court.”

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Had Selig simply written a staid Wall Street Journal op-ed asserting the CFTC’s authority (which he also did), that would have barely raised an eyebrow. But in 2026, a video threat, especially one posted on X, is basically grounds to instigate a political firestorm — one that Spencer Cox, the Republican Governor of Utah, gladly kindled. “Mike, I appreciate you attempting this with a straight face, but I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds,” he posted in response (also on X). “These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple. They are destroying the lives of families and countless Americans, especially young men. They have no place in Utah.” He promised that Utah would continue to pursue litigation and beat the federal government in court if need be.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Utah and Cox have voiced their opposition to federal overreach regarding emerging technology. Last year, they publicly opposed an executive order that would have given the Justice Department the power to sue states passing and enforcing AI regulatory laws. The prediction markets issue hits a particular nerve in Utah: nearly half of the state is Mormon, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially opposes all government-sanctioned forms of gambling, even state lotteries. But Cox’s declaration is what’s known in political circles as a “weathervane”: if one deeply Republican state is pushing back against the Trump administration on a new front, who else on the right might follow suit — and what sorts of new broligarch technologies would they fight against?

Is it a coincidence that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s big visit to Washington happened just as the Pentagon was reconsidering its relationship with the AI company? Over the past two weeks, Amodei published a 38-page letter to Congress warning of the rising existential risks of artificial intelligence, conducted an interview with Axios’s Mike Allen (and sponsored their newsletter), and met with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Jim Banks (R-IN) on Capitol Hill to support their bill banning the sale of advanced AI chips to China.

But Amodei barely finished his capitol blitz when Axios broke the news over the weekend that the Pentagon wasn’t just impatient with Anthropic’s reticence to use Claude for unrestricted purposes, but that it would actively punish Anthropic for refusing to cooperate by designating them a “supply-chain risk.” If it goes through, any company that wants to work with the military would have to cut ties with Anthropic. As one Pentagon official described it, “It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this.”

The Pentagon’s move makes no sense for anyone who sees Claude as a superior AI enterprise product to its competitors at the Pentagon (Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok). If viewed through the lens of every former interaction that Trump’s had with companies that voiced ideological opposition to his agenda however, their treatment of Anthropic is par for the course. Years ago, for instance, Trump threatened to cut off Amazon’s access to their sweetheart deal with the US Postal Service, in retaliation for Jeff Bezos’ ownership of the then highly critical Washington Post.

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But for me, the question is: exactly what caused the ideological break, and how much of it was even about national security? In the past few months, there’s been a bizarre spurt of online messaging from right-wing influencers trying to claim that Anthropic, of all the AI companies, was too woke — the kind of woke that could convince kids to become trans, or DEI-pill them, or whatever lib-coded nightmares a MAGA personality could dream up. There wasn’t much proof that they could point to, other than its employees expressing opinions that could be lib-coded, if you’re not fully reading the entire tweet:

Screenshot va @KatieMiller/X.

Speaking of influencers eating their own:

  • Steve Bannon is under MAGA siege for his 2018 texts with Jeffrey Epstein, newly unearthed from the Justice Department’s Epstein Files, wherein he suggested that Trump should be removed from office using the 25th Amendment. Influencers calling for him to be questioned include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who broke from Trump and the GOP for trying to bury the Epstein Files, and retired Gen. Mike Flynn. Notably, both of them rose to prominence in 2020 by backing QAnon, the online conspiracy theory that claimed that an elite ring of Satan-worshipping pedophiles were in control of the government. (It may not help Bannon that he called Epstein “God” in one of the texts).
  • Mike Davis, an anti-Big Tech lawyer who previously represented Trump in his lawsuits against Meta, took credit for the ouster of former friend and ally Gail Slater from the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, according to texts obtained by The Free Press. Though the two were once allies due to their shared interest in holding Big Tech accountable, their relationship started fracturing over disagreements about when to enforce antitrust laws and when to go for settlements.
  • And we’re back to Bannon: per The Bulwark, he and fellow MAGA political operative Boris Epshteyn are being sued for their own shady cryptocurrency operation.

The White House is convening a third meeting between the crypto industry and the banking industry this week, continuing to hash out which major financial entity gets to reap the interests from yield-bearing stablecoin accounts (or if they get to bear interest at all). They have until March 1st to deliver draft language for the Senate. Good luck, y’all!

And finally, looksmaxxing Recess.

Can we all agree that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is framemogging Kid Rock in this video?

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See you next week, and send all tips to every way that we list here.

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Tax season scams 2026: Fake IRS messages stealing identities

Published

7 hours ago

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February 19, 2026

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Tax season scams 2026: Fake IRS messages stealing identities

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Tax season no longer begins in April. For scammers, it starts the moment the calendar flips to January. 

While you’re waiting for your W-2 or 1099 to arrive, cybercriminals are already sending out waves of fake IRS messages, “refund problem” alerts and account verification scams. These messages feel alarmingly real, and that’s not an accident.

The truth is, today’s tax scams don’t rely on random guessing. They rely on your personal data, pulled from online data brokers, public records and previous breaches. And once your information is in circulation, you become part of a high-value target list.

Let’s break down what’s really happening – and how you can protect yourself before the first fake message lands in your inbox.

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ROBINHOOD TEXT SCAM WARNING: DO NOT CALL THIS NUMBER

Tax scammers are targeting Americans as soon as January with fake IRS emails and refund alerts designed to steal personal data. (Photo illustration by Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images)

The new wave of tax scams

Every year, scammers refine their tactics. And every year, they get better at making their messages look legitimate. Here are the most common scams hitting Americans before tax season even peaks:

1) Fake IRS emails and texts

These messages look official. They use real IRS language, government-style formatting and even fake case numbers. You might see something like:

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“Your tax account is under review. Immediate action is required to avoid penalties.”

The email may include:

  • IRS logos and official-looking headers
  • Threatening language about audits or fines
  • A link that appears to go to a government website.

But when you click, you’re taken to a fake IRS portal designed to steal:

  • Your Social Security number
  • Your date of birth
  • Your bank account details
  • Your IRS login credentials.

Once scammers have that, they can file fake returns, redirect your refund or impersonate you for years.

2) ‘Refund Issue’ alerts

This is one of the most effective tax scams because it preys on something people are already waiting for: their money. The message usually says:

“Your tax refund has been delayed due to a verification issue. Please confirm your information.”

It feels believable. You just filed. You are expecting a refund. And the message arrives right when you’re checking your bank account.

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The link leads to a perfect copy of:

  • A government site
  • A tax filing service
  • Or a bank login page.

Every keystroke you enter is captured. Scammers now have your identity, your financial access and your tax data – all from one click.

3) Benefit and identity verification scams

These scams impersonate the:

  • IRS
  • Social Security Administration
  • State tax offices.

Often, they use what seem to be legitimate titles like “tax resolution officer” and state that you have unresolved tax activity. They claim your benefits, tax records or identity are “on hold” and must be verified immediately.

Typical messages say: “Your benefits account has been temporarily suspended. Verify your identity to restore access.” Or: “We detected unusual activity on your tax profile. Confirm your information now.”

The goal is simple: panic. When people panic, they don’t slow down. They don’t double-check. They click. And once they do, scammers collect everything they need to fully impersonate the victim.

HOW TO SAFELY VIEW YOUR BANK AND RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS ONLINE

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Cybercriminals use data broker profiles and breach records to personalize tax scams and make them appear legitimate. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Why these messages feel so real

You may wonder: How do they know my name? My address? My tax service?

They don’t guess. They buy it. Data brokers collect and sell personal profiles that can include your:

  • Full name and address history
  • Phone numbers and email addresses
  • Family members and marital status
  • Estimated income and property records
  • Age, retirement status and employer history.

Scammers use this data to personalize their messages. That’s why the email doesn’t feel random. It feels meant for you. And once your profile is sold or leaked, it can be reused again and again.

The real target isn’t your refund. It’s your identity

Once scammers steal your Social Security number, tax ID or bank details, the damage doesn’t stop with one scam.

They can:

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  • File fake tax returns
  • Open credit lines in your name
  • Redirect benefits
  • Sell your identity on criminal marketplaces.

Tax scams are often the entry point to long-term identity theft.

The ‘pre-tax season cleanup’ most people skip

Most people think clearing browser cookies or changing passwords is enough. It’s not. Your information still lives in data broker databases, where scammers shop for victims.

That’s why I recommend a data removal service that automates data removal and goes directly to the source. Instead of chasing scams one by one, these services help remove the reason you’re targeted in the first place.

While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren’t cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It’s what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.

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Practical steps to protect yourself this tax season

Here’s what I recommend before filing:

  • Never click tax links from emails or texts. Go directly to official websites. Strong antivirus software can help block malicious links before they install malware or steal personal information. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.
  • Use strong, unique passwords for tax services and email.  A password manager helps create and store strong, unique passwords and alerts you if your email appears in known data breaches. Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our No. 1 password manager pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com.
  • Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible.
  • Freeze your credit if you’re not applying for loans. To learn more about how to do this, go to Cyberguy.com and search “How to freeze your credit.” 
  • Remove your data from brokers before scammers find it, as discussed above.

2026 VALENTINE’S ROMANCE SCAMS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

Fake “refund issue” messages trick taxpayers into entering Social Security numbers and bank details on fraudulent sites. (Photo illustration by Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images)

Kurt’s key takeaways

Tax scams don’t start in April; they start when your data is sold. The more complete your profile becomes, the easier it is for scammers to impersonate government agencies and steal your identity. By removing your personal data now, you’re not just protecting your refund; you’re protecting your future. This tax season, don’t wait for the alert. Remove the risk.

Have you received a suspicious IRS text or email this tax season, and what made you question whether it was real? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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Copyright 2026 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.

Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

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The RAM crunch could kill products and even entire companies, memory exec admits

Published

19 hours ago

on

February 18, 2026

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The RAM crunch could kill products and even entire companies, memory exec admits

Phison is one of the leading makers of controller chips for SSDs and other flash memory devices — and CEO Pua Khein-Seng has now become a leading voice for just how bad the RAM shortage might get.

Companies may need to cut back their product lines in the second half of 2026, and some companies will even die if they can’t get the components they need, he agreed, in a televised interview with Ningguan Chen of Taiwanese broadcaster Next TV.

While the interview’s entirely in Chinese, friends of The Verge stepped forward to confirm parts of a machine-translated summary that’s been making headlines. They also note, importantly, that it’s the interviewer asking whether companies might shut down or product lines might discontinue. Khein-Seng largely just agreed and clarified that it’ll happen if these companies cannot secure enough RAM.

He also adds that he expects people will start fixing products more often when they break, instead of throwing them in the trash, over the next couple years.

It’s genuinely possible that some companies won’t be able to secure enough RAM. AI data centers are gobbling up the vast majority of the world’s memory supply as part of a global buildout, creating an unprecedented imbalance in supply and demand that’s seen RAM prices triple, quadruple, or even sextuple over the past handful of months. Even Nvidia might skip shipping a gaming GPU for the first time in 30 years. Even Apple may have trouble securing enough RAM now, not to mention memory chips for SSDs, and other vital components.

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The RAM shortage may affect everything that computing touches over the next several years, as only three companies control 93 percent of the entire DRAM market, and while those three companies are building more facilities, they don’t want to build too fast. All three have decided to prioritize profits instead of risking overproduction that could lose them money later.

Tomorrow, February 19th, I’ll have a report on The Verge about how “RAMageddon” will affect you, even if you’d never think to buy a stick of memory yourself.

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