> they did it to themselves, first by eschewing virtual memory in the System/360 and first models of the System/370, thus losing the higher education market and what people eventually moved to like UNIX, thus their big machines become a specialized niche of the whole computer market

Yup. They went from neutral generalists to niche specialists.

TSMC is, today, a neutral generalist with the scale of Apple, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung and the others combined. You’re (EDIT: Nope!) advocating trading that for Apple’s profits. Short-term versus long-term greedy.

> McDonald's versus farmer joe who makes the best potatoes

Replying to a parent comment of yours (EDIT: Also wrong!). McDonald’s has scale. TSMC has scale. Farmer Joe competing with McD’s makes sense. Tyson competing with McD’s does not; it will lose, in the long run, McD’s as well as other restaurant chains as customers with that play, undermining its home-turf edge while it competes where it has none.