Facebook's (aka Meta) recent fall from grace - its reported loss of
users, the resultant loss of 30% market share, and the unrelated news
that it might have to pull out of Europe due to GPDR conflicts - is
good news all around, at least for everyone but Zuckerberg. But did
you know that it also means that Nvidia is now worth more than
Facebook?

Yup; Facebook's market cap is a 'mere' $615 billion, compared to
Nvidia's cap of $657 billion, and that despite the loss it took after
Nvidia's merger with ARM was blocked.

I'm not entirely thrilled with the news that Nvidia is now valued as
the 7th largest company in the US; it was already a behemoth and their
products dominate the marketplace. I'd rather a less mature
marketplace with more competitors resulting in more innovation and
lower prices. The fact that Nvidia's latest offering is essentially a
rebranded version of a six year old card (by performance, at least)
and you STILL can't find one for less than $1000 indicates how
unhealthy the market is.

Still, a little part of me can't help but cheer for the company. I
remember them from 'back when', and have generally been pleased with
their products over the years. The GF1 was a daring - and risky -
change for the company, but its success pushed graphics cards from
being mere 'accelerators' to actual processing units. That they were
able to leverage this speaks highly not only of their technical chops
but also their business acumen. So good for them.

Now if only I could find a replacement quality graphics card for less
money than with which I could buy a car...

On 12/02/2022 16:52, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Facebook's (aka Meta) recent fall from grace - its reported loss of
> users, the resultant loss of 30% market share, and the unrelated news
> that it might have to pull out of Europe due to GPDR conflicts - is
> good news all around, at least for everyone but Zuckerberg. But did
> you know that it also means that Nvidia is now worth more than
> Facebook?
>
> Yup; Facebook's market cap is a 'mere' $615 billion, compared to
> Nvidia's cap of $657 billion, and that despite the loss it took after
> Nvidia's merger with ARM was blocked.
>
> I'm not entirely thrilled with the news that Nvidia is now valued as
> the 7th largest company in the US; it was already a behemoth and their
> products dominate the marketplace. I'd rather a less mature
> marketplace with more competitors resulting in more innovation and
> lower prices. The fact that Nvidia's latest offering is essentially a
> rebranded version of a six year old card (by performance, at least)
> and you STILL can't find one for less than $1000 indicates how
> unhealthy the market is.
>
> Still, a little part of me can't help but cheer for the company. I
> remember them from 'back when', and have generally been pleased with
> their products over the years. The GF1 was a daring - and risky -
> change for the company, but its success pushed graphics cards from
> being mere 'accelerators' to actual processing units. That they were
> able to leverage this speaks highly not only of their technical chops
> but also their business acumen. So good for them.
>
> Now if only I could find a replacement quality graphics card for less
> money than with which I could buy a car...
>

I also don't have much affection for FB (no I really don't care what you
had for breakfast) and I've also never really understood why it's quite
so popular. My personal page I don't think I ever posted on it and the
only reason I use it is for a few FB groups and to be honest it's not
very good at doing a forum type format.

NVidia, I can't say their dominant position worries me that much as for
me it's very much a case of it's just a graphics card and I'll get a new
one that does the job every four, five six years.

Saying that, yes the prices at the moment are very stupid and I was
fortunate that I got my latest one before the prices really started
rising. Strangely enough it turned out that it wasn't my GTX 570 that
was at fault but instead a failing power-supply.

On Sun, 13 Feb 2022 10:34:54 +0000, JAB <noway@co.uk> wrote:

>NVidia, I can't say their dominant position worries me that much as for
>me it's very much a case of it's just a graphics card and I'll get a new
>one that does the job every four, five six years.

Just a note: Nvidia isn't 'just graphics cards', although that is
their most prominent product line. But they've a wide range of
computer-related products, from motherboards, to system-on-a-chip, to
virtualization, automotive solutions, deep learning analytic software
and hardware and more. And - had their acquisition of ARM been
successful - they would have had their fingers in pretty much every
mobile device out there.

They didn't become 7th-highest-valued company because of GPU prices;
they've slowly wedged themselves into a lot of corners of the computer
industry. That is, in fact, why the acquisition of ARM was prevented
by the regulators; it would have given the company too much influence.
So their size is something of a concern for more than just the PC
enthusiast community.

But that's really neither here nor there. My original post was really
more about the schadenfreude from Facebook's decline (long may it
continue) coupled with an amazement at how far NVidia has come from
its earlier days.

On 13/02/2022 17:13, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Sun, 13 Feb 2022 10:34:54 +0000, JAB <noway@co.uk> wrote:
>
>> NVidia, I can't say their dominant position worries me that much as for
>> me it's very much a case of it's just a graphics card and I'll get a new
>> one that does the job every four, five six years.
>
> Just a note: Nvidia isn't 'just graphics cards', although that is
> their most prominent product line. But they've a wide range of
> computer-related products, from motherboards, to system-on-a-chip, to
> virtualization, automotive solutions, deep learning analytic software
> and hardware and more. And - had their acquisition of ARM been
> successful - they would have had their fingers in pretty much every
> mobile device out there.
>
> They didn't become 7th-highest-valued company because of GPU prices;
> they've slowly wedged themselves into a lot of corners of the computer
> industry. That is, in fact, why the acquisition of ARM was prevented
> by the regulators; it would have given the company too much influence.
> So their size is something of a concern for more than just the PC
> enthusiast community.
>
> But that's really neither here nor there. My original post was really
> more about the schadenfreude from Facebook's decline (long may it
> continue) coupled with an amazement at how far NVidia has come from
> its earlier days.
>

I knew they had branched out but I didn't realise by quite how much.

On Saturday, February 12, 2022 at 8:52:33 AM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> Facebook's (aka Meta) recent fall from grace - its reported loss of
> users, the resultant loss of 30% market share, and the unrelated news
> that it might have to pull out of Europe due to GPDR conflicts - is
> good news all around, at least for everyone but Zuckerberg. But did
> you know that it also means that Nvidia is now worth more than
> Facebook?
>
> Yup; Facebook's market cap is a 'mere' $615 billion, compared to
> Nvidia's cap of $657 billion, and that despite the loss it took after
> Nvidia's merger with ARM was blocked.
>
> I'm not entirely thrilled with the news that Nvidia is now valued as
> the 7th largest company in the US; it was already a behemoth and their
> products dominate the marketplace. I'd rather a less mature
> marketplace with more competitors resulting in more innovation and
> lower prices. The fact that Nvidia's latest offering is essentially a
> rebranded version of a six year old card (by performance, at least)
> and you STILL can't find one for less than $1000 indicates how
> unhealthy the market is.
>
> Still, a little part of me can't help but cheer for the company. I
> remember them from 'back when', and have generally been pleased with
> their products over the years. The GF1 was a daring - and risky -
> change for the company, but its success pushed graphics cards from
> being mere 'accelerators' to actual processing units. That they were
> able to leverage this speaks highly not only of their technical chops
> but also their business acumen. So good for them.
>
> Now if only I could find a replacement quality graphics card for less
> money than with which I could buy a car...

Seconded. It looks like they've dropped a little. As long as crypto
is a thing that may never happen. So I mentally cheer every time I
hear of any crypto taking hits.

- Justisaur