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If ARM is truly too important to the economy to be owned by a “selfish” business, shouldn't we just declare it public domain and move on? Why can’t Nvidia’s com

by dcow 5y ago

If ARM is truly too important to the economy to be owned by a “selfish” business, shouldn't we just declare it public domain and move on? Why can’t Nvidia’s competitors who they’d try to abuse and squeeze go use some other ISA? Is ARM really that good, or is it just popular?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Traster 5y ago
A company doesn't need to be owned by the govenrment (which I assume is what you mean) for the government to guarantee it is free from being bought out by it's competitors. Whatsapp/Instagram were great examples of this - where the leader in a sector managed to buy its primary competition. As far as I understand it no one can credibly claim Instagram's growth has been prioritized relative to Facebook - why? Becuase Facebook prioritizes facebook. This isn't a question of "will the economy collapse if X buys Y" it's a question of "Which will yeild the best outcome, Y being acquired by X or no". The exact definition of "best outcome" is where the entire battleground though. It is quite difficult to see who actually could acquire ARM though - because of ARM's quite unique position, any of the potential acquirers are either customers (Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm) who would be vertically integrated to beat out competitors or direct competitors (AMD, Intel). I think almost the only people who could buy ARM at this point would be TSMC.
- khuey 5y ago
  Why does ARM need to be acquired by someone? If Softbank wants to unload it why can't they do an IPO?
  - jpetso 5y ago
    Mostly because Jensen Huang was willing to pay a nice premium over what the market would otherwise offer. There are some cough synergies cough that Nvidia could have instrumented for higher profits, Jensen had a clear and enthusiastic vision about how to get there. Softbank can still sell ARM to anyone including the public market, they just won't get as much money for them that way. Presumably.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  For the market to stay competitive, ARM must stay independent - we have enough oligopolies and monopolies already
kbenson 5y ago
It's not about the economy, it's about competition and consumer harm from the lack of it. As much as it's easy to forget, the free market is supposed to be a tool for the benefit of consumers (through both price and innovation), and while it's not very common, every once in a while the government actually looks at that as important and steps in.
- pm90 5y ago
  It hasn’t been common recently, under Obama/Trump. The Biden Admin FTC seems like it’s serious about using antitrust laws to prevent the market from being too lopsided in favor of a few big players.
  - rswail 5y ago
    More like Bush II/Obama/Trump. The FTC has been neutered for a while, particularly when the rulings about decreased competition vs consumer choice were made in the mid-2000s. The reason for competition law is to regulate the free market to ensure that consumer choice is not limited by the uncontrolled acquisition and merger of suppliers. The merger of NVidia and ARM is inherently non-competitive unless NVidia accepted limitations/restrictions on their licensing freedom which they are not willing to propose or accept. That's leaving aside the international and other ramifications of a company that is involved in the entire vertical of chip production and sale through to retail having control of the licensing of the most used ISA and other IPRs that are available to its competitors throughout that vertical.

by dcow 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Traster 5y ago

A company doesn't need to be owned by the govenrment (which I assume is what you mean) for the government to guarantee it is free from being bought out by it's competitors. Whatsapp/Instagram were great examples of this - where the leader in a sector managed to buy its primary competition. As far as I understand it no one can credibly claim Instagram's growth has been prioritized relative to Facebook - why? Becuase Facebook prioritizes facebook. This isn't a question of "will the economy collapse if X buys Y" it's a question of "Which will yeild the best outcome, Y being acquired by X or no". The exact definition of "best outcome" is where the entire battleground though. It is quite difficult to see who actually could acquire ARM though - because of ARM's quite unique position, any of the potential acquirers are either customers (Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm) who would be vertically integrated to beat out competitors or direct competitors (AMD, Intel). I think almost the only people who could buy ARM at this point would be TSMC.

khuey 5y ago
Why does ARM need to be acquired by someone? If Softbank wants to unload it why can't they do an IPO?
- jpetso 5y ago
  Mostly because Jensen Huang was willing to pay a nice premium over what the market would otherwise offer. There are some cough synergies cough that Nvidia could have instrumented for higher profits, Jensen had a clear and enthusiastic vision about how to get there. Softbank can still sell ARM to anyone including the public market, they just won't get as much money for them that way. Presumably.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
For the market to stay competitive, ARM must stay independent - we have enough oligopolies and monopolies already

kbenson 5y ago

It's not about the economy, it's about competition and consumer harm from the lack of it. As much as it's easy to forget, the free market is supposed to be a tool for the benefit of consumers (through both price and innovation), and while it's not very common, every once in a while the government actually looks at that as important and steps in.

pm90 5y ago
It hasn’t been common recently, under Obama/Trump. The Biden Admin FTC seems like it’s serious about using antitrust laws to prevent the market from being too lopsided in favor of a few big players.
- rswail 5y ago
  More like Bush II/Obama/Trump. The FTC has been neutered for a while, particularly when the rulings about decreased competition vs consumer choice were made in the mid-2000s. The reason for competition law is to regulate the free market to ensure that consumer choice is not limited by the uncontrolled acquisition and merger of suppliers. The merger of NVidia and ARM is inherently non-competitive unless NVidia accepted limitations/restrictions on their licensing freedom which they are not willing to propose or accept. That's leaving aside the international and other ramifications of a company that is involved in the entire vertical of chip production and sale through to retail having control of the licensing of the most used ISA and other IPRs that are available to its competitors throughout that vertical.