I read a story this week that genuinely made me smile, and I think it says something bigger about where AI is taking us.
The story
The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler reported on 28 October that the companies making flash storage, the chips in iPhones that hold your photos, music and apps, are finally getting their own back on Apple.
For years, Apple was the world’s biggest buyer of flash, and according to the report it used that position hard. It “bullied flash makers into opening their books so it could monitor sales, making sure no one else got a better deal.” Suppliers had to name Apple a “most favoured customer”, so nobody could pay less. When flash prices were falling, Apple would sometimes refuse delivery of chips it had ordered, leaving suppliers holding piles of them, some custom-made for Apple.
The piece opens with Scott Nelson, a sales executive at the Japanese flash maker Kioxia, who was so fed up with always getting the worst end of the deal that he stopped his dirt bike in the Californian desert and shot his old iPod with a rifle. He used Android phones in protest.
The report also describes Apple’s long-time head of procurement, Tony Blevins, telling a Sandisk salesman around the end of 2015 that he would have Sandisk’s chief executive “crawl on his knees” back to Apple, after Sandisk refused to send extra supply because other customers would pay more.
Then AI arrived
AI data centres need enormous amounts of storage. The Journal cites research firm TechInsights: two years ago, Apple bought nearly twice as much flash as Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google combined. Now those hyperscalers buy double Apple’s share, and AI demand has quintupled flash prices over the past year. Meta, Microsoft and Amazon have signed long-term contracts with Kioxia at higher prices. Apple is no longer the customer everyone has to please.
Why I care, as a founder
I’m not cheering against Apple. Strangiva is an iPhone app, and I love building for it. What gets me is the pattern. For decades, being the biggest customer, the biggest platform or the biggest company meant you set the terms for everyone else. AI is shaking that up.
It’s happening in chips, and it’s happening in software too. When one developer with AI can build what used to need a team, the giants lose some of their grip. Ideas, taste and speed start to matter more than size. That’s the only reason a small UK app like Strangiva can try to give people something better than the big platforms: open, anonymous voice chat, no sign-up, and AI matching that never stores what you wrote about yourself.
The honest caveat
A power shift isn’t automatically good for everyone. The report notes Apple has raised prices on a lot of products this year and blamed the memory shortage, so in the end shoppers are paying for some of this “revenge”. And the balance could swing back one day. But I think the bigger direction is clear: AI is spreading leverage around, and that’s good news for small builders.
What do you reckon? Reply below, anonymously.
Source: Rolfe Winkler, “The Beleaguered Chip Sellers Getting Their Revenge on Apple”, The Wall Street Journal, 28 October 2026 (subscription). Summarised by MacRumors, 30 October 2026. Market figures are TechInsights estimates as quoted in the report.
Zalan Khan
Founder of Strangiva
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