back

by kristjansson·4y ago·view on hn ↗
Mainstream economics argues that the market tends toward equilibrium, not that it equilibrates instantly, and that the structure of specific markets controls the speed of that process. Modern semiconductors are fantastically capital intensive, and so respond slowly.

An Intel leveraging their position to under-invest and earn outsize gains from their leadership position in x86 ... would lose business to competitors (like they have been by AMD), innovators (like they are to Nvidia) and substitutes (like they have to Apple Silicon).

1 comments
> Modern semiconductors are fantastically capital intensive, and so respond slowly.

That's my point and de-legitimizes the economic model that grants them private control.

There's a substantial leap here from 'Intel might be temporarily able to / trying to exercise a degree of monopolistic pricing power' to 'market capitalism is illegitimate'. The response to a firm with mono{pol,pson}istic pricing power is to encourage competition, require cooperation, or force divestment.