[logfromblammo]

People don't buy iPads because of the ARM chips. But if the alternative is a Xiangdi Industries "10 Tablet" with a zhMIPS CPU and a not-entirely-unlike-Android OS, the lack of any familiar brand names may influence the consumer to just pay more for the sure thing (to them).

(I made those names up. Any similarity to actual brands is entirely coincidental.)

In any case, I was not trying to say that ARM cores are free to use. I was comparing their business to open hardware, and pointing out that people often prefer to pay for the ability to not delve too deeply into the details of what they are buying.