[kristopolous]

why not? i'm sure they can jump into the hustle.

Increasing the availability doesn't mean decreasing the price ... people think those are intrinsically related - not so much.

You can get a prada shirt for $2,000 ... as many as you'd like, for $2,000 a piece. No problem. They'll make the factories go burr all night long. Still $2,000.sweeping

There's a bunch of things like this. $100 bills for instance ...

a new entrant might yield a price drop, or, it might not.

[exceptione]

  > why not? i'm sure they can jump into the hustle.

Not so quick. Critical difference is the relationship between enterprises and the state. In China, the state owns the enterprise, in one way or another. High costs of memory is a threat to the established Chinese electronics manufacturers. The Chinese state can optimize returns at a higher level than the one some petty chip manufacturer operates at, especially if doing so means it could gain coercive geopolitical strength, aka blackmailing.

[kristopolous]

I mean kind of? Industry and politics are always cohorts. China has structural differences but new entrance to commodities and defensives are almost exclusively price sensitive offers. If say, Singapore or even a firm in Ohio tried to enter the market for global play, they'd undercut as a strategy

Except... Maybe they don't need to. Demand is outstripping supply right now. Competing on availability may be sufficient

You can easily see this on a mini-macro scale with popular restaurants. Often a restaurant with an equivalent menu and prices will open nearly adjacent to a very popular place and can sustain itself simply because you don't have to wait an unacceptable length of time to be seated