4 ms·

If, having seen the risk turn into reality, they want to buy some of Apple's capacity, they are free to make an offer.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Why would Apple allow that? They clearly have the money to outbid AMD and Qualcomm just to prevent them from competing, and the leverage to threaten moving their phones to a competitor and drop the prices for TSMC in the opposite case.
- cormacrelf 5y ago
  The only way to analyse this as something bad Apple has done is to make out a case under competition or antitrust law in some jurisdiction. In Australia we have the concept of exclusive dealing, which the US (I think) doesn't have an equivalent to, but even then, it's extremely difficult to violate this law as a purchaser of goods/services, using money to buy them. This is because ANYBODY can acquire money and compete with you by offering more money. You could hold a monopoly on your own products (and then if you imposed exclusivity arrangements on purchasers of your products you would be abusing your market power to lessen competition), but it's essentially impossible to hold a monopoly on money itself. In all, you're characterising Apple, competing fiercely in an open market, as preventing other people competing by being too good at it. That is a bit ridiculous. If AMD and Qualcomm die out as a result, it will be because they couldn't keep up, which is capitalism functioning correctly. Even under those very broad laws, the only party you can remotely fault is TSMC, and even then, they are literally just taking from the highest bidder, which is again capitalism functioning correctly.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Ultimately I'm not making a legal argument. All I'm saying is that it's very bad for the industry and for the public in general that Apple is the only entity that has access to the cutting edge and that it's only available in their golden cage. It doesn't really matter to me if this is capitalism working correctly or not, or if it's legal or not, ultimately all that matters is that because of this computing is being pushed back, we're not seeing as much competition on performance as we could be, and that's generally bad for everyone. I understand that Apple is just looking out for #1, I just think this is bad for the general public.
    - cormacrelf 5y ago
      Right, and I’m saying they are not the only entity with access, because all you have to do to get into the golden cage is have a really good idea and get financing, and that is possible. Letting everyone else get your idea of a fair share of production capacity to produce sub-par chips is not my idea of good progress. If they truly deserve capacity allocated to them, they should demonstrate they can design better chips, convince someone with money to fund it, and do what Apple’s done (buying TSMC a fabrication plant). That they haven’t done this, and they are punished by not having the cash to acquire production capacity, means that they will feel the pain, and have to start innovating their way out. This is what capitalism gives you: the fire under your butt to innovate. That’s how it’s good. If you prefer the lazy to succeed anyway, you are free to feel that way. Edit, to address what you said exactly: this is the way in which losing out on capacity forces them to compete harder. If they fall behind in benchmarks for a few years, and you read that as a lack of competition, you are wrong: it is perfect competition, they fell behind, and are now working harder than they were before to design something better. Just because capitalism in the long term usually gets competitors to converge does not mean a temporary winner in the lead indicates competition is not occurring. Apple delivered a jolt to a market that had been flatlining, so there is more competition now than there was before.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        But the chips are not sub-par. The entire point of my argument is that at an equal lithography the competition can outperform Apple. The performance advantage that Apple can demonstrate is under the margin of improvement from 7nm to 5nm all else being equal (RAM, TDP, etc..) There was already a fire under their butt before Apple. Both AMD, Intel, NVidia and even Qualcomm are competing against each other. And that competition yielded architectures that are at least on par and very probably better than what Apple can do. They can design better chips. They just don't have as much money as Apple. It's something that Apple already did before with, for example, the first generation of small HDDs, they bought out the entire production line and their competitors, despite being able to make MP3s that were just as good, had to wait for years to access the parts.
- mcphage 5y ago
  "It would be expensive to compete so why bother?" isn’t really how you succeed under capitalism.

Why would Apple allow that? They clearly have the money to outbid AMD and Qualcomm just to prevent them from competing, and the leverage to threaten moving their phones to a competitor and drop the prices for TSMC in the opposite case.

cormacrelf 5y ago
The only way to analyse this as something bad Apple has done is to make out a case under competition or antitrust law in some jurisdiction. In Australia we have the concept of exclusive dealing, which the US (I think) doesn't have an equivalent to, but even then, it's extremely difficult to violate this law as a purchaser of goods/services, using money to buy them. This is because ANYBODY can acquire money and compete with you by offering more money. You could hold a monopoly on your own products (and then if you imposed exclusivity arrangements on purchasers of your products you would be abusing your market power to lessen competition), but it's essentially impossible to hold a monopoly on money itself. In all, you're characterising Apple, competing fiercely in an open market, as preventing other people competing by being too good at it. That is a bit ridiculous. If AMD and Qualcomm die out as a result, it will be because they couldn't keep up, which is capitalism functioning correctly. Even under those very broad laws, the only party you can remotely fault is TSMC, and even then, they are literally just taking from the highest bidder, which is again capitalism functioning correctly.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Ultimately I'm not making a legal argument. All I'm saying is that it's very bad for the industry and for the public in general that Apple is the only entity that has access to the cutting edge and that it's only available in their golden cage. It doesn't really matter to me if this is capitalism working correctly or not, or if it's legal or not, ultimately all that matters is that because of this computing is being pushed back, we're not seeing as much competition on performance as we could be, and that's generally bad for everyone. I understand that Apple is just looking out for #1, I just think this is bad for the general public.
  - cormacrelf 5y ago
    Right, and I’m saying they are not the only entity with access, because all you have to do to get into the golden cage is have a really good idea and get financing, and that is possible. Letting everyone else get your idea of a fair share of production capacity to produce sub-par chips is not my idea of good progress. If they truly deserve capacity allocated to them, they should demonstrate they can design better chips, convince someone with money to fund it, and do what Apple’s done (buying TSMC a fabrication plant). That they haven’t done this, and they are punished by not having the cash to acquire production capacity, means that they will feel the pain, and have to start innovating their way out. This is what capitalism gives you: the fire under your butt to innovate. That’s how it’s good. If you prefer the lazy to succeed anyway, you are free to feel that way. Edit, to address what you said exactly: this is the way in which losing out on capacity forces them to compete harder. If they fall behind in benchmarks for a few years, and you read that as a lack of competition, you are wrong: it is perfect competition, they fell behind, and are now working harder than they were before to design something better. Just because capitalism in the long term usually gets competitors to converge does not mean a temporary winner in the lead indicates competition is not occurring. Apple delivered a jolt to a market that had been flatlining, so there is more competition now than there was before.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      But the chips are not sub-par. The entire point of my argument is that at an equal lithography the competition can outperform Apple. The performance advantage that Apple can demonstrate is under the margin of improvement from 7nm to 5nm all else being equal (RAM, TDP, etc..) There was already a fire under their butt before Apple. Both AMD, Intel, NVidia and even Qualcomm are competing against each other. And that competition yielded architectures that are at least on par and very probably better than what Apple can do. They can design better chips. They just don't have as much money as Apple. It's something that Apple already did before with, for example, the first generation of small HDDs, they bought out the entire production line and their competitors, despite being able to make MP3s that were just as good, had to wait for years to access the parts.
mcphage 5y ago
"It would be expensive to compete so why bother?" isn’t really how you succeed under capitalism.