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"Won't you feel for the poor money-gouging GPU manufacturers?"
Yes, chips are expensive. But the profit margins of companies like Nvidia are growing much faster than the cost of silicon.
Last I looked at this, profit margins in chip industry are pretty thin. Profitability comes mostly from volume. This article gives a pretty good overview of the dynamics in the industry https://compactmag.com/article/fighting-a-chip-war-on-the-cheap
From that same article:
In good times, profit margins are impossibly high. Nvidia, perhaps the world’s most advanced designer of AI chips, last year made $20 billion of gross profit on $30 billion of sales.
It then goes on to detail a reversal in that profit trend which has since gone away (it's a 2022 article). Nvidia is making huge fat profits again, since everyone has quadrupled down on AI.
Right, key part is that there needs to be constant massive demand for the whole thing to be profitable. AI hype will die down eventually, so that's not gonna be a sustainable long term cash cow for them.
Well, at least they aren't getting more expensive yet, it'd be werid explaining to my grandkids how I grew up in the 'age of cheap semi-conductors'.
... but if you take inflation into account if the price is stable then goods are getting relatively more expensive.
... but if you take inflation into account if the price is stable then goods are getting relatively ~~more expensive~~ cheaper.
FTFY
Really looking forward to mass produced 16nm chips. Flooding the market is just what’s needed to make them more affordable
that actually looks to be the big fear western manufacturers have now https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/U.S.-nervous-about-flood-of-older-generation-chips-from-China
Imgaine if consumer electronics had only 28nm chips with long-lasting and superior quality software. Every laptop and smartphone would have at least 10 yeear lifespan.
Indeed, the way I use my phone hasn't really changed in over a decade. I use the same few apps like email, calendar, music player, browser, and some messenger apps vast majority of the time. From user perspective, I can't tell any real difference in terms of usability or snappiness in the UI. We absolutely could've been making phones that last and then just continuously optimizing the software to keep getting more out of them. Unfortunately, the pressures of capitalism create an incredibly wasteful industry where companies try to get people to buy new phones as often as possible.