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diff --git a/article/hardware-oligopoly.html b/article/hardware-oligopoly.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db2adb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/article/hardware-oligopoly.html @@ -0,0 +1,85 @@ + +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title>Hardware Oligopolies and the Decentralization of Hardware Production</title> + <link rel="stylesheet" href="/plain.css" /> + <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" /> + <meta charset="utf-8" /> + </head> + <body> + <h1>Hardware Oligopolies and the Decentralization of Hardware Production</h1> + <p>Article ID: 20</p> + + <p>While I was looking through some of my email archives, I found that <a href="https://mail.andrewyu.org/pipermail/evosaur-general/2022-October/000001.html">I sent the following to the Evosaur project's mailing list</a>. It might be an interesting read, so here's a copy.</p> + +<pre> +Here are my thoughts on the current situation on the oligopoly of the +CPU and general technology market. + +Many markets, especially the computer hardware market down to the basics +such as the architecture/chipset-like level, are Economics of Scale, +meaning that the cost of production per unit decreases as the total +number of production for one entity. This naturally gives rise to +oligopolies, also known in the technology industry as companies like +Intel and Microsoft. + +An oligopoly is a market structure in which a market or industry is +dominated by a small number of large sellers or producers. People often +confuse this with monopolies, for which the latter Francis Wayland +defines as ``an exclusive right granted to a [hu]man or a monopoly of +[hu]man, to empoly their labor or capital in some particular manner'', +which cannot exist in a free market (i.e. free of government +regulations). The technology industry in most countries is an +oligopoly, not a monopoly. + +The harm of oligopolys (and monopolies, which are similar in this +context) are commonly discussed in Economics, such as the lack of +competition causing prices to be solely in control of one economic +entity, who may set insane prices in seek of profits, which is +especially harmful for products that serve basic human needs, such as +food and water. And in modern times, technology is often a necessity +for daily life, exacebating the harms of a relevant oligopoly market. + +There is yet another practical harm of a oligopoly technology market: +about the rights of users. When CPUs are produced by almost solely +Intel, AMD, and a few others, they are now free to add their backdoors +and ``management engines'' into the CPUs that we users use daily, and +their seek for profit pushes them to do so. We now have to work with +spyware in our computer hardware, and we can't do anything about it, +because the oligopoly nature of the market doesn't allow us common +people to monitor, produce, develop, or otherwise deal with our own +technology except for the ``expected usages'' that the oligopoly +superimposes on us. + +One way out is to decentralize the development and production of CPUs +and related goods. Individual cities and towns should be able to +produce computers, from the very basics, for their own people. +And I know this sounds like an anti-internationalisation self-sustaining +propaganda chiche economic outcome, but if you think about it, such an +essential part of life (like technology) would be better served by +people who'd be less likely to massively implement spyware that would be +of any use to them. + +Initiatives to decentralize development of CPUs and other computer +components, such as LibreSilicon, have existed for a short time (in +comparison to the time that Intel and AT&T have existed). We're nowhere +near what Intel could make, however, partly due to the insane patents +around their technology. Patent trolls exist and often target free +software and free hardware projects, and thus applying the idea of +copyleft as it works for copyright, to patents, may aid practical +development. And at this point, we can't really develop upon existing +foundations, so we have to ignore pre-existing knowledge and develop our +own architecture and CPU from the start, paying attention to copyleft +licenses and copyleft-in-patents to hopefully prevent patent trolls from +taking over the world again. (This is also what the <a href="https://evosaur.andrewyu.org/">Evosaur</a> project is +attempting to do.) + +Please tell me your thoughts on this. +</pre> + <div id="footer"> + <hr /> + <p><a href="/">Andrew Yu's Website</a></p> + </div> + </body> +</html> |