4 ms·

Everything you suggested gives customers a worse user experience - see Android vs iOS and Windows vs Macs - and higher prices because each component in the chai

Everything you suggested gives customers a worse user experience - see Android vs iOS and Windows vs Macs - and higher prices because each component in the chain needs to make a profit and slower product cycles than when one company can offer an integrated experience. If I want a regionally redundant infrastructure do I now have to negotiate with multiple companies in a region (multi AZ) and multiple regions? Do I have to negotiate with thousands of Points of preference for my CDN? Do all of these companies who want their own TPUs have to negotiate with TSMC?

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> Everything you suggested gives customers a worse user experience - see Android vs iOS and Windows vs Macs - and higher prices because each component in the chain needs to make a profit and slower product cycles than when one company can offer an integrated experience. None of that is true and the impression only comes about because concentrated markets create a small sample size and Microsoft and Google in particular care less about user experience than Apple. Putting aside things like third party support (which come from incumbency and scale rather than design choices), which desktop operating system has the best user experience: Windows, macOS, or Linux? It's Linux by a hair, then macOS, with Windows a mile behind either of them. Which doesn't make any sense if vertical integration is a huge advantage, but makes perfect sense if specifically Microsoft sucks and being insulated from real competition allows them to. "Each company has to make a margin" doesn't increase costs whatsoever because each company only gets the margin on the part they're doing. If the RAM has a net production cost of $20 and the flash is $25 and they're both made by the same company with a 10% margin then the total cost is $45 + 10%. If they're made by two different companies then one costs $20 + 10%, the other costs $25 + 10% and the total is still $45 + 10%. And the same is true for steps that happen in series rather than in parallel, because margins aren't a fixed percentage, they're the amount you can get away with before the customer goes to a competitor, which in a competitive market is related to the cost of production + cost of capital. Having a combined retailer and wholesaler means the combined entity then has combined costs -- the "retailer" has to negotiate with manufacturers and the "wholesaler" has to operate retail stores, and therefore needs both margins to operate. Meanwhile market consolidation is the thing that actually increases prices, because the lack of competition is what allows the supplier to increase their margins without losing business to competitors. > If I want a regionally redundant infrastructure do I now have to negotiate with multiple companies in a region (multi AZ) and multiple regions? Do I have to negotiate with thousands of Points of preference for my CDN? If you want a cart full of groceries, do you have to negotiate with hundreds of orange groves and chicken farms? No, supermarkets do that and then you go to any of the numerous supermarkets to get your groceries. That doesn't require the supermarkets to own the orange groves or chicken farms. > Do all of these companies who want their own TPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? Do all of the companies that want their own GPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? No, AMD/nVidia/Broadcom/NeoMagic/Qualcomm/etc. negotiates with TSMC/Samsung/GlobalFoundries/Intel/etc. and then you buy a GPU from a GPU company instead of the GPU/TPU customer needing to design their own GPU/TPU.
- JustExAWS 1y ago
  > None of that is true and the impression only comes about because concentrated markets create a small sample size and Microsoft and Google in particular care less about user experience than Apple. Let’s look at the set top box market and integrated smart TV OS. There is Roku, Amazon, Samsung and LG off the top of my head. All of them suck compared to the AppleTV and use cheaper hardware. Android OEMs have been customizing Android for years and they are all worse than either Apple or even stock Android. In the PC market which was commoditized like you want, have you seen the crap the OEMs do to their computers when left to their own devices? > Putting aside things like third party support.. “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?” > It's Linux by a hair, then macOS, with Windows a mile behind either of them. Did I somehow miss “the year of Linux on the desktop”? User experience means for me - long battery life, runs cool, app availability, integrates well with my other devices, runs quietly. > doesn't increase costs whatsoever because each company only gets the margin on the part they're doing. If the RAM has a net production cost of $20 and the flash is $25 and they're both made by the same company with a 10% margin then the total cost is $45 + 10%. If they're made by two different companies then one costs $20 + 10%, the other costs $25 + 10% and the total is still $45 + 10%. That makes absolutely no sense mathematically. > If you want a cart full of groceries, do you have to negotiate with hundreds of orange groves and chicken farms? No, supermarkets do that and then you go to any of the numerous supermarkets to get your groceries. That doesn't require the supermarkets to own the orange groves or chicken farms. So you suggest I go through a middle man with their own markup? Right now, I can with one text file of yaml or one CDK app create a globally redundant infrastructure with databases, VMs, queues, load balancers, a CDN, network infrastructure a cloud hosted call center (one of my specialties), storage (S3) and access 6-7 LLM’s all running on one set of infrastructure along with fast interconnects owned by one company. And when I have a problem, I talk to one organization. Are you suggesting I should go through a third party now to do all of that? What do I gain? > Do all of the companies that want their own GPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? No, AMD/nVidia/Broadcom/NeoMagic/Qualcomm/etc. negotiates with TSMC/Samsung/GlobalFoundries/Intel/etc. and then you buy a GPU from a GPU company instead of the GPU/TPU customer needing to design their own GPU/TPU. And out of all those companies, who have top of the line mobile chips or desktop chips that are designed in conjunction with their hardware and have a good experience? If you like commoditized phones and computers where dozens of manufacturers can choose what to pick up off the shelf, you are welcomed to buy a PC or Android device. Apple is in no shape form or fashion a monopoly in the mobile space or desktop space. AWS is not a monopoly in cloud computing and devoutly doesn’t stop someone from using a Colo. None of these big tech companies are hard to avoid. It is fairly easy with around a quarter million of capital to start your own phone hardware business, fly to China and negotiate with ODMs (not a typo) and they will customize a run for you where you choose from one of their “platforms” and run your own version of AOSP.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

> Everything you suggested gives customers a worse user experience - see Android vs iOS and Windows vs Macs - and higher prices because each component in the chain needs to make a profit and slower product cycles than when one company can offer an integrated experience. None of that is true and the impression only comes about because concentrated markets create a small sample size and Microsoft and Google in particular care less about user experience than Apple. Putting aside things like third party support (which come from incumbency and scale rather than design choices), which desktop operating system has the best user experience: Windows, macOS, or Linux? It's Linux by a hair, then macOS, with Windows a mile behind either of them. Which doesn't make any sense if vertical integration is a huge advantage, but makes perfect sense if specifically Microsoft sucks and being insulated from real competition allows them to. "Each company has to make a margin" doesn't increase costs whatsoever because each company only gets the margin on the part they're doing. If the RAM has a net production cost of $20 and the flash is $25 and they're both made by the same company with a 10% margin then the total cost is $45 + 10%. If they're made by two different companies then one costs $20 + 10%, the other costs $25 + 10% and the total is still $45 + 10%. And the same is true for steps that happen in series rather than in parallel, because margins aren't a fixed percentage, they're the amount you can get away with before the customer goes to a competitor, which in a competitive market is related to the cost of production + cost of capital. Having a combined retailer and wholesaler means the combined entity then has combined costs -- the "retailer" has to negotiate with manufacturers and the "wholesaler" has to operate retail stores, and therefore needs both margins to operate. Meanwhile market consolidation is the thing that actually increases prices, because the lack of competition is what allows the supplier to increase their margins without losing business to competitors. > If I want a regionally redundant infrastructure do I now have to negotiate with multiple companies in a region (multi AZ) and multiple regions? Do I have to negotiate with thousands of Points of preference for my CDN? If you want a cart full of groceries, do you have to negotiate with hundreds of orange groves and chicken farms? No, supermarkets do that and then you go to any of the numerous supermarkets to get your groceries. That doesn't require the supermarkets to own the orange groves or chicken farms. > Do all of these companies who want their own TPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? Do all of the companies that want their own GPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? No, AMD/nVidia/Broadcom/NeoMagic/Qualcomm/etc. negotiates with TSMC/Samsung/GlobalFoundries/Intel/etc. and then you buy a GPU from a GPU company instead of the GPU/TPU customer needing to design their own GPU/TPU.

JustExAWS 1y ago
> None of that is true and the impression only comes about because concentrated markets create a small sample size and Microsoft and Google in particular care less about user experience than Apple. Let’s look at the set top box market and integrated smart TV OS. There is Roku, Amazon, Samsung and LG off the top of my head. All of them suck compared to the AppleTV and use cheaper hardware. Android OEMs have been customizing Android for years and they are all worse than either Apple or even stock Android. In the PC market which was commoditized like you want, have you seen the crap the OEMs do to their computers when left to their own devices? > Putting aside things like third party support.. “Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?” > It's Linux by a hair, then macOS, with Windows a mile behind either of them. Did I somehow miss “the year of Linux on the desktop”? User experience means for me - long battery life, runs cool, app availability, integrates well with my other devices, runs quietly. > doesn't increase costs whatsoever because each company only gets the margin on the part they're doing. If the RAM has a net production cost of $20 and the flash is $25 and they're both made by the same company with a 10% margin then the total cost is $45 + 10%. If they're made by two different companies then one costs $20 + 10%, the other costs $25 + 10% and the total is still $45 + 10%. That makes absolutely no sense mathematically. > If you want a cart full of groceries, do you have to negotiate with hundreds of orange groves and chicken farms? No, supermarkets do that and then you go to any of the numerous supermarkets to get your groceries. That doesn't require the supermarkets to own the orange groves or chicken farms. So you suggest I go through a middle man with their own markup? Right now, I can with one text file of yaml or one CDK app create a globally redundant infrastructure with databases, VMs, queues, load balancers, a CDN, network infrastructure a cloud hosted call center (one of my specialties), storage (S3) and access 6-7 LLM’s all running on one set of infrastructure along with fast interconnects owned by one company. And when I have a problem, I talk to one organization. Are you suggesting I should go through a third party now to do all of that? What do I gain? > Do all of the companies that want their own GPUs have to negotiate with TSMC? No, AMD/nVidia/Broadcom/NeoMagic/Qualcomm/etc. negotiates with TSMC/Samsung/GlobalFoundries/Intel/etc. and then you buy a GPU from a GPU company instead of the GPU/TPU customer needing to design their own GPU/TPU. And out of all those companies, who have top of the line mobile chips or desktop chips that are designed in conjunction with their hardware and have a good experience? If you like commoditized phones and computers where dozens of manufacturers can choose what to pick up off the shelf, you are welcomed to buy a PC or Android device. Apple is in no shape form or fashion a monopoly in the mobile space or desktop space. AWS is not a monopoly in cloud computing and devoutly doesn’t stop someone from using a Colo. None of these big tech companies are hard to avoid. It is fairly easy with around a quarter million of capital to start your own phone hardware business, fly to China and negotiate with ODMs (not a typo) and they will customize a run for you where you choose from one of their “platforms” and run your own version of AOSP.