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Comment by xen2xen1 | Hacker News Reader

You're putting the fact that modern computers have AMT up with Covid, supply shortages, and Crypto crashes in terms of sales loss???...????? You really, really need to get out of whatever bubble you're in.

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AMD ST (formerly PSP) and Intel CSME (formerly ME, not the same as AMT) are the only reason that I, and 3 close friends off the top of my head, are completely disinterested in buying any new x86 CPUs.

All 4 of us work in big tech companies, have 6 figure take home pay even after expenses. I don't mind paying high prices due to shortages. Lockdowns were BS and I was continuing to eat out regularly at restaurants from September 2020 to present in a state with lax mask requirements. Only 1 of the 3 friends lost any money in crypto, and it was a very small amount compared to his annual income.

Just because you and your social sphere don't fully appreciate the privacy implications of CSME and ST, which again, aren't the same as AMT, doesn't mean nobody else cares about them. Have you considered that it might be you who is in the bubble?

> Just because you and your social sphere don't fully appreciate the privacy implications of CSME and ST, which again, aren't the same as AMT, doesn't mean nobody else cares about them. Have you considered that it might be you who is in the bubble?

I worked in a computer store for four years. I probably helped thousands of customers in that period.

None of these concerns ever came up from what I can recall. Not even once. People ask about all sorts of things and I've answered my share of questions about Linux and even FreeBSD, but never this.

Are there some people concerned about this to the point they don't purchase x86 chips? Obviously yes. Is it a broadly held concern? Doesn't seem like it.

The types of people who hold this concern are categorically unlikely to be the kind of people to ask for help (or accept unsolicited help) from staff at a consumer computer store - they are much more likely to be the type of people who can almost certainly run circles around any consumer technical support or consumer sales staff they ever interact with, in just about every technical domain, and the type who deliberately avoid talking with the staff, as the staff are almost certainly unfamiliar, inexperienced with, and unqualified to address their niche concerns in the first place.

I'd never ask a Microcenter employee whether AMD or Nvidia cards are going to have better pass-through support on the Xen hypervisor to a BSD guest kernel with any expectation of a knowledgeable response, would you?

Would you ask a Best Buy employee whether the session tokens used by a wireless router's web interface are generated using a PRNG or a CSPRNG and expect them to be helpful?

We had a wide variety of customers on account of being a local business with a long history in the area and a good reputation. This included many tech people and business customers. I have no way of measuring how representative it was exactly, but it's more representative than you might think. Most people don't work in IT and don't want to run Xen in the first place, so it's still fairly indicative what "the average person" thinks – certainly more indicative than you and your 3 friends who work in IT.

As I discussed in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34775479), what the "average person" wants and cares about is an objectively bad metric for anyone who cares about digital privacy when making security/privacy relevant decisions. The "average person" is functionally illiterate on matters of digital security and privacy.

This thread is about declining CPU shipments, and Intel ME is offered as an explanation for that. It's extremely relevant in this context what "the average person" thinks because if they don't care then it doesn't affect sales.

I'm certainly not arguing that it's the only reason, or even a primary reason, but it absolutely is a reason. We can debate the extent to which sales decline is attributable to this all day long, but fact of the matter is, x86 CPU manufacturers are hurting right now, and I'm sharing an option for anyone at those companies who might be reading that can alleviate some of that pain. Like I've said in other comments, if I could get a 7950x without AMD ST (formerly PSP), I'd eagerly pay $2500 for it, and I definitely wouldn't be the only one.

Your social sphere is tiny, to be quite frank. The market we're talking about is tens of millions to billions of devices. You and your four friends, or your ten friends, or your thousand or even hundred thousand friends are largely not relevant. The vast majority of people using computers that have these processors in them would probably give you a very puzzled look if you even asked them what CSME or ST are.

This is not my entire social sphere, nor is my argument that my social sphere alone has influence, it's just an example (admittedly a small one that isn't representative of the general population, see other comments) of a larger trend. Please also read my other comments where I discuss Google wanting ME-free CPUs for their servers as part of an effort to remove all proprietary blobs that was started in 2017. There is enormous institutional demand that singlehandedly justifies this offering, even if you entirely disregard the very real consumer demand.

The vast majority of people cannot cover a $500 emergency expense and fall for extremely basic phishing attempts - what the "average" person wants is an objectively bad metric to strive for or to base reasonable expectations upon. The "average" person is a fool that struggles to cover the lowest levels of their hierarchy of needs, to say nothing of abstract concepts like digital privacy.

Would you accept what the average person has for your financial situation? Your education? Your level of personal responsibility? I sure as hell wouldn't. Why should we factor the ignorant opinions of the tech-illiterate regarding digital privacy as a baseline for what ought to be?

I know this comes across as harsh, but that's reality. Consumers these days by and large don't even understand what data is being collected about them, let alone how the data collected from them can be used against them: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/technology/online-privacy...

Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/A6kJ2

Your and your 3 friends have absolutely no effect on the macro cpu market.

I understand that n=4 is a small sample, and it is not representative of the general population, but you're strawmanning my argument if you're suggesting my point is that the four of us alone affect the market, I'm suggesting a larger trend.

> have 6 figure take home pay even after expenses

Being in the top 1% of global income, and top 5% of US income, is definitely being inside a bubble.

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