History really does come full circle. Last night, during an interview, Cook pointed the finger at storage manufacturers for price hikes, saying the pressure comes from upstream storage price increases, not Apple's own doing. Micron's Chief Business Officer responded, saying the blame lies with previous low-price procurement, which discouraged storage manufacturers from expanding production. Back in 2023, during the last downturn in the storage industry, some customers (especially Apple, known for tough negotiations with suppliers) took the opportunity to push procurement prices to rock-bottom levels. Micron's gross margin even turned negative at one point. This caused massive investments across the entire industry to be halted due to extremely low pricing and poor profitability. This is also one of the key reasons behind the current AI-driven storage shortage, aside from the explosion in demand: major storage manufacturers are still haunted by the brutal capacity clear-out three years ago and are being very cautious about expanding production. At the same time, they’re leveraging their capacity to force downstream customers into signing long-term contracts, locking in prices, and boosting gross margins. This time, the boomerang of history has hit Apple itself.