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We don't have the vocabulary to separate two ways people use "critical": "required for something's functioning", and "not substitutable".

A tire is critical to a car's functioning, but there's plenty of brands to choose from if one tire company goes bust. Ofc, substitutability is a matter of degree - cost/time.

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Any language can explain that difference easily. Even if all the article said was that this factory was "critical" to the semiconductor industry, I wouldn't have commented. Saying "the semiconductor industry hinges on a quartz factory..." or "The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina" is a very different type of deliberate hyperbole.

Those are true statements in the exact same way, though! "Hinges" and "rests" are used in the same way as "critical". Ofc, this requires some interpretive thought - and that may be a lot to ask of a general reader.

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