Having less competitors in hardware is better and why people ruin competition

TheScavenger

This comes because of: https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/475749/and-then-there-were-three-global-foundries-announces-its-intention-to-abandon-the-leading-edge#latest

But I didn't want to make an off topic post there

The problem with having a lot of competition is the people themselves more than the actual competitor. Its like the people who ruin anime, or a great example is the Rick and Morty fanatics. The shows, or in the case of this thread...the products aren't the problem. Its the people

You should NEVER have brand loyalty ever. Its an inanimate object, not some random higher power to worship or a person that has done a lot of good to the world. Its a piece of hardware. You don't see people worshipping screwdrivers like some kinda fanatics. Can make better use of the time helping people in need in 3rd world countries and take the time of arguing what brand of meaningless is better, and help people with food and do something useful to the world.

Which brings to the topic title...

In a perfect world. A mac user would buy a windows product, if that windows product was better. Or a windows user would buy a mac product, if mac made a better product. Or Nvidia users would buy an AMD product if AMD made a product or vice versa.

But nope, people ruin that and become fanatical. They'll see a famous nail brand and go on and on about how that is the only nail to buy in the world. 

So because of that, I've always felt the less competitors...or even one single giant company that merged together. Or in the case of the thread I linked, competition shutting down..is a lot better. It be good thing if AMD or Nvidia merged together to create one company. Or if Mac or Windows combined forces to make a better product. Then no one can troll on the internet endlessly complaining what company is better and never buying a competitor product even if its better. So companies merging would make no difference, because they wouldn't buy a competitor product anyway even if it was actually better.

The point of competition, especially in hardware, is to buy the best product...not buy just because it has AMD, or Intel or Nvidia sticker on it. But because its good. And thats why people ruin the very foundations of competitors in the hardware industry. And people who say they "hate" Nvidia or AMD or Mac or Windows or whatever inanimate product or meaningless company... are the same people who will go up to a rock outside and shout "I hate you!" both achieve the same thing and both look equally foolish.

Buy the better product. Not go by meaningless brands that mean nothing. Buy the product that is actually better. But people won't do that, but unless that changes... one giant company is far better. Especially if companies merge or buy each other out since that means they combined forces and can make an even better product.

Competitors in theory is better for the industry (that I agree with)...but that only works if people bother to buy the better product. But people will often stick with a worse product just because of a meaningless brand. Otherwise what is the point of competition at all?

Cleffy

There is more to competition aside from being the best. Having the best product doesn't guarantee you will be successful. Take for instance Windows Mobile. They were miles better as a platform and user experience than either iOS or Android. They made use of the existing hardware better than any mobile OS. That didn't help them become the dominant OS because there is more to competition.

TEKK3N

In my personal experience is the manufacturer fault.
I was an ATI/AMD fanboy for many years.

Because of it I had to endure years of dodgy, noisy and power thirsty Graphic cards because of my loyalty.
Eventually I switched to Nvidia, because their graphic cards were consistently more quiet and less power hungry.

Loyalty can actually give under performing brands more time to sort their shit out.
Unfortunately some brands (AMD) don't take advantage of it and eventually lose to the better product.

A better product will always prevail in the end, even if it takes time.

frostymug

People don't worship screwdrivers?

In different circles, Mac vs Snap On is just as heated as Mac vs PC.

I'll leave the rest alone because we have clearly different views on consumer choice and monopolies and the resulting effect on product quality.

Wizardry

Well of course it is the people but more so it is always about the $$$.There are ALWAYS going to be a lot of people with money to waste,so they will never have a problem paying too much for a pile of transistors and diodes.
Geesh i see stupid people giving twitch streamers sometimes in the thousands of dollars,for no reason,they don't even know the streamer,they simply have too much money to waste.

We need competition,sure the manufacturer's see less pressure to compete when all the dumb asses go out and pay those inordinate prices but on a larger scale they still need to sell to the little guy so it creates some sort of lesser market with competition.

Quizzical

I don't get how this came from my thread about Global Foundries canceling its 7 nm process node.  Making an advanced chip on the latest process nodes costs at least tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars.  It also takes years of working with the foundry, and many millions of dollars of additional expense if you want to switch a particular chip to a different foundry.  That's wildly different from the consumer market of buying CPUs, GPUs, or operating systems.

Quizzical

One problem with your thesis is that switching vendors isn't always free.  If you switch from Windows to Mac, much of the software that you previously ran simply won't run on the new OS.  There may be other, comparable software that will.  But learning a new set of programs takes time.

Switching GPU vendors is somewhat simpler, but if you need something that one GPU vendor offers and the other doesn't, that can drive your purchasing decision.  I recently bought a Radeon RX Vega 64 even though Nvidia GPUs are more efficient at most gaming purposes because I have an unusual case:  three monitors at 144 Hz.  That would cause an Nvidia GPU to be unable to reduce its clock speed, and likely burn about 100 W when idle at the desktop.  When sufficiently idle, a Vega 64 can clock as low as 26 MHz, and can even clock way down under very light gaming loads.  That means that the real-world power consumption of a Radeon RX Vega 64 will be much less than a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti for my personal usage of it, even though it would be the other way around for most gamers.

As for competition, we always need at least two competitors.  Nothing pushes a monopoly to greatly improve their product, nor to cut prices.  With multiple competitors, you have to offer customers a better deal or else they'll drop you and go with a competitor.

If Nvidia were the only major GPU vendor, they'd save a ton of money by not making nearly so many advances in GPUs.  Maybe they'd offer fewer GPU dies on each process node, and wait an extra year to adopt a new process node so that it would be more mature.  If AMD had stopped at 28 nm, perhaps Turing wouldn't exist at all, a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti would cost $1000, a GeForce GTX 1080 $700, and those would still be the prices for the high end a year from today.

Or just look at what happened to Intel CPUs when all AMD had to offer was Bulldozer derivatives.  They'd increase performance by maybe 5%-10% per year and call it good enough.  Their latest and greatest is still heavily derivative of the Sandy Bridge architecture that they launched at the start of 2011.  No need to spend billions of dollars to greatly innovate if people will buy your product regardless.  When AMD was more competitive, Intel moved from NetBurst to Conroe to Nehalem to Sandy Bridge fairly quickly--and those were all major overhauls of their architecture.  Now that AMD is competitive again, Intel is likely to again up their game, at least as soon as they get their foundry side in order.

To leave technology for a cleaner example, look what happens to medicine prices when a patent expires, at least in the United States, as opposed to places where governments won't particularly respect patents.  Once it's legal to offer generics, the price of a given drug quickly drops to slightly more than it costs to produce it and distribute it.  Before that, the price tends to be much, much higher.  That's done because without it being possible to make a profit, companies wouldn't develop the drugs in the first place.  But it does illustrate that competition makes a huge difference.

Albatroes

Tbh, having less competition can be better depending on the intent of involved companies. Applying that to how old game's worked, the reason they may seem 'better' to some is because there was less competition. So this resulted in a lot of unspoken rules for those developers such as a high requirement when it came to alpha/beta applications, or "some content is just not meant for you right away (or ever depending on your skill level)," etc. When less competition is involved, norms can be set easier (good and/or bad). Right now with so many f2p games being released on a weekly basis, its hard to adhere to long standing 'norms' if those involved do not care (mainly the asian market that will copy literally any game, such as in china/korea).

monochrome19

Monopolies are NEVER EVER better than competition. EVER. If you seriously believe this, you need your head examined. If companies have the opportunity to fuck you over, they will. This has been proven time and time again. Competition limits this somewhat, and is in the best interest of the consumer. I'd take fanatical Apple and Playstation fanboys over shitty monopolies like Comcast every time.

IsilithTehroth

Peoeple genererally buy the better product. Monopolies are terrible and anyone in favor is pretty dumb.