Perhaps Pareto efficiency is an underlying cause for this response. Treating the chip as a fait accompli, boosting the cache doesn't hurt Intel and it benefits

Perhaps Pareto efficiency is an underlying cause for this response. Treating the chip as a fait accompli, boosting the cache doesn't hurt Intel and it benefits the consumer. In a world where white cotton tee shirts can sell for hundreds of dollars, option (a) satisfies more notions of "fairness". "An economic system that is not Pareto efficient implies that a certain change in allocation of goods (for example) may result in some individuals being made "better off" with no individual being made worse off, and therefore can be made more Pareto efficient through a Pareto improvement." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency