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points by r3trohack3r 4 days ago | 0 comments

> Key problem is that we've allowed a company that's always been this way to form a monopoly.

I don’t think anyone “allowed” them - quite the opposite. They’ve made generational bets that ended up being right, bets that IIRC the industry did not agree with for a long time. Them pursuing CUDA resulted in a draw down of something crazy like 75% of their valuation. They bet the farm multiple times to get to the point they are - and it’s only “obvious” in hindsight.

If you want folks to make generational bets as a matter of course (which I think most folks do), centralizing the downside of those bets and socializing the upside of those bets is not a great strategy. Almost as bad as socializing the downside.

Competition will eventually close that gap. We’re only a few years into this thing.

[–] thrance 3 days ago

Monopolies don't naturally decay, competition can't close the gap against an entrenched titan that can either buy or asphyxiate them.

[–] krapht 3 days ago

I know NVIDIA is dominating the market, but it's not like AMD/Intel/Google don't have credible alternatives. Hipify/OneAPI/MLIR(Jax etc) can be used today, it's just not as ergonomic as CUDA.

[–] logancbrown 3 days ago

You could have done maybe 20 seconds of research to find what you posted is not correct "Monopolies don't naturally decay".

Have you ever heard of U.S. Steel, IBM, Kodak, and Western Union?

[–] thrance 3 days ago

These monopolies were defeated (or weakened) by new technologies they didn't adopt early enough, not by market forces like competition.

[–] logancbrown 3 days ago

New technologies are indeed how natural competition market forces primarily work.

[–] thrance 3 days ago

Hmm... I kind of disagree with that. Technological breakthroughs are not "natural". We shouldn't have to bet on someone discovering something that is able to make NVIDIA obsolete.