[jayparth]

> materials

They're all printed from the same wafers.

> labor

It's not like manual laborers are sitting there carving these things by hand. We program computers to do it.

Reprogramming and setting up the hardware for multiple SKUs increases cost, paradoxically

[uluyol]

> They're all printed from the same wafers.

Not just that. When you fab a design you'll get sometimes get errors here or there and have to disable things. Or it won't be safe to drive the thing to the highest clock speeds. But none of that is happening here: we're talking about the same design and same output quality.

Really just absolute greed and lack of innovation. I hope ARM and AMD continue to eat away at them for this reason. Same feeling about BMW/Mercedes and the subscription heated seats.

[brookst]

Would you be happier if Intel spent the money to have a second SKU that removed the features in silicon, including imperfect yield, and charged more than they are now to cover that extra cost?

Pricing makes more sense when you pay for value delivered.

[uluyol]

Neither is ethical, because the company has the option to reduce customer costs while increasing margins, and they are doing the opposite. This is especially true for monopolies.

But that's actually why, despite my complaints, I'm not worried about Intel's actions here. I don't think Intel is offering good value compared to their competition.

The markets where Intel has wins are niche workloads and consumer (AMD is supply constrained and focusing all efforts on the high margin cloud/enterprise market). Otherwise they are losing, and offering lower value will make them lose faster.

So to summarize, I think it's not only immoral, but a losing strategy.

[brookst]

I think you’re saying that only cost-plus pricing is ethical. That’s . . . a take.

Most of the world operates on value-based pricing. For instance, you could probably afford to work for less money, but you are unethically asking your employer for more money than your pure cost of living. You presumably expect your employer to pay based on the value you provide to the company, not your costs.

It may or may not be a losing strategy, but I think it’s very strange to see value based pricing as immoral. But maybe? I’m open to correction if you ask your employer to lower your wages when your costs go down, e.g. by paying off a car or student loan.

[uluyol]

I don't have a problem with value based pricing. But I think I'm just going to end up repeating myself now so I'm going to check out of this discussion now.