Honestly you're overthinking this way too much. Take a step back. Your last post here is a good example, I'm starting to understand why you got that warning over at [H]
While I haven't read anything over at [H] (I avoid their forums like the plague, what I've seen there is among the most toxic, hellish "discussion" I've seen in tech), I agree that there seems to be a bit of overzealous "critical thinking" going on here.
Let's take this step by step:
Critical thinking is good.
The tech world is far too dominated by tribalism and brand loyalty, and tech journalists are too often journalists only in name, due to being utterly beholden to OEMs to get review samples. "TechTubers" are particularly egregious here. Still, some journalists have actual integrity.
Corporations are not our friends; they're out to make money and beyond public perception and how that might affect business they generally don't give a damn about users. Still, some corporations from time to time turn out not to be complete a******s.
Occam's razor is a great logical tool in the vast majority of cases.
So, the main questions are then:
1) Is Kyle believable, or is he out to gain a reputation?
2) Is Nvidia believable, or are they trying to hide malfeasance/criminality?
3) What other commentary is worth listening to, and why? What other perspectives are relevant?
For me, it goes something like this:
1) Yes, he is believable, as he stands to lose far more (both personally and professionally) than he stands to gain. Also, if this was somehow a hatchet job with no basis in truth, wouldn't it be amazingly easy for Nvidia to supply some of these less scrupulous "journalists" with proof to the contrary? Yes, it would, yet this has not appeared. Instead, Nvidia has clammed up and gone into "blame everyone else"-mode. This makes them look guilty, and Kyle look like he's onto something. Also, Occam's razor tells us that it's far more logical to assume that giant corporations are (still) corrupt than to assume that Kyle is somehow doing this to profit personally. There would be far too many "?????"s before "Profit" in that business plan. As for the use of off-the-record statements from unnamed sources, my stance on that is explained in detail in a previous post.
2) Nvidia has gone out of their way to not give out information. Shouting "transparency" is, believe it or not, not the same as being transparent. Nvidia has produced absolutely nothing of substance to counter Kyle's claims. And if they could, they would, as that would counteract damage to their brand and potentially boost sales (or at least make them lose fewer sales). Nvidia is clearly in damage control mode, so the fact that they aren't doing the most obvious form of damage control (presenting something to the tune of "Kyle was wrong, here's some proof") is itself telling.
3) This is rather tricky. Even entertainment-first "influencers" like LTT and Jay's 2 Cents have approached this case in a rather serious manner. That doesn't make them the most believable sources, though. The main issue here is that their main industry "contacts" are PR reps, and the "information" they get access to is carefully curated PR. Steve of Gamers' Nexus is, for me, in a league above these. By no means a perfectly serious journalists, but he's the only 'tuber I know of who is genuinely critical of pretty much every product reviewed, and has a well reflected and seemingly informed view of how the industry works. I would never suspect him of being a shill (well, outside of stupid "sponsored content" videos, which are essentially YT's version of "advertorials" - I can't remember if GN does these, but I would assume so). GN's "GPP info dump" video was, at least according to the video, based on off-the-record conversations with both new and established industry contacts. I don't see any major reason to not believe that - essentially, just like with Kyle's original report. In fact, the off-the-record insinuation that HP and Dell's main reason for refusing the GPP was that they already had similar deals with Intel is a very, very, very substantial claim, and I sincerely hope that someone is able to follow this up further. If investigation into the GPP leads to an antitrust case against Intel, that would be ... poetic justice? Kind of hilarious, at least.
The silence from serious sites like AnandTech (which has contact very deep within most major tech companies, and is often given access where others aren't, at least on the engineering side) is for me another indication that there's
something here. If Nvidia had a way of disproving this, they would instruct any and every relevant person to lay this out clearly and concisely so that it'd get wall-to-wall coverage. This hasn't happened. Which means that either Nvidia and AIB partners aren't talking, that they're talking but strictly off-the-record and not enough to make a case (perhaps beyond saying "We think Kyle might be right", which serious news sites wouldn't really post), or that they're being given bland non-answers like the "GGP is dead" blog post by Nvidia. This would make anything they post either opinion or speculation, which sites like this rarely post.
Tl;dr: Critical thinking is good, but needs to be checked by reason. The GPP was, at best,
borderline anti-competitive and a rather BS approach to "fixing" a nonexistent "problem". At worst, it was a clear attempt at unfairly disadvantaging competitors by pressuring common partners to disadvantage the competition. Which is true? We likely won't know anything of substance until official investigations play out, but logic and the available evidence (and lack of evidence to the contrary) seems to tip the scales towards the latter.
, based on what Kyle has claimed at his article) . They had to sacrifice something in order to get something else, pure definition of "opportunity cost".
, so i have to tell it !! :
)
