Cutthroat usually means something like unprincipled or ruthless competition. When 3DFX and now Nvidia were on top, there was no assailing them. You exist in a

Cutthroat usually means something like unprincipled or ruthless competition. When 3DFX and now Nvidia were on top, there was no assailing them. You exist in a position they allow you to exist. Perhaps the competition between 3DFX and ATi or Nvidia and AMD could be described as cutthroat but the other "competitiors" in the space couldn't even compete and eventually they all just pivoted into other things without anyone noticing or caring. It's not unlike the x86 processor market. Companies like Via and Transmeta existed but they never were any serious competition to Intel or AMD.