> The point at which this breaks is when Intel doesn't have any real competition and uses segmentation as a way to raise prices on higher end chips rather than

> The point at which this breaks is when Intel doesn't have any real competition and uses segmentation as a way to raise prices on higher end chips rather than as a way to create cheaper SKUs. I’m not sure that this is really fair to call broken. This sort of fine granularity market segmentation allows Intel to maximize revenue by selling at every point along the demand curve, getting a computer into each customer’s hands that meets their needs at a price that they are willing to pay. Higher prices on the high end enables lower prices on the low end. If Intel chose to split the difference and sell a small number of standard SKUs in the middle of the price range, it would benefit those at the high end and harm those at the low end. Obviously people here on HN have a particular bias on this tradeoff, but it’s important to keep things in perspective. Fusing off features on lower-priced SKUs allows those SKUs to be sold at that price point at all. If those SKUs cannibalized demand for their higher tier SKUs, they would just have to be dropped from the market. Obviously Intel is not a charity, and they’re not doing this for public benefit, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a public benefit. Enabling sellers to sell products at the prices that people are willing/able to pay is good for market efficiency, since it since otherwise vendors have to refuse some less profitable but still profitable sales. It is unfortunate though that this has led to ECC support being excluded from consumer devices.