Given the market caps of Google, Facebook, Apple et-al it makes me wonder why nobody has bought out Intel. They'd over time lose the ecosystem advantages that

Given the market caps of Google, Facebook, Apple et-al it makes me wonder why nobody has bought out Intel. They'd over time lose the ecosystem advantages that an independent Intel offers. They'd probably also lose a lot of money since an in-house Intel would become much less competitive. Apple also doesn't need or want what Intel has to offer (highest performance but very much not the lowest cost to manufacture chips), unless my impression of Mac vs. iOS systems sales is way off. It's hard to imagine Intel being in such dire straights they can let Google and Facebook blackmail them in such a market damaging way, although as noted by t0mas88 other big customers like AWS might be getting their own custom numbered parts. Or, who knows, might not need exactly these types of chips (I have no idea, not familiar with the market beyond what I buy, low/near lowest cost single chip Xeons for my personal workstation class computers). But pissing off everyone else who buys these class chips, unless contrary to the article they do have a capacity issue, seems breathtakingly unwise, an inflection point indeed.