I find the article compelling. He cited a lot of other articles, isn't making outrageous claims, provided concrete numbers, and isn't spinning unrealistic conspiratorial claims. The only core feature of human behavior we need to accept to believe the article is that some people are very greedy.
I thought it was weak, his core argument seems to boil down to the idea that if there were more domestic competition then device manufacturers would somehow be willing to buy worse chips for more money. It just doesn't make any sense. The woes of Intel, Micron, etc are nobody's faults but their own.
He's arguing for more competition on the customer side (with Apple) but starting more domestic fabs wouldn't directly help unless they have backing with patience and absurdly deep pockets. A big reason we're in this situation is that it's incredibly expensive to stay at the leading edge, and even when you have the money it's hard to do (see: Intel). Intel is only one node behind (N4 at a fab in Ireland), I'm not sure what will be running in their new US fab in Arizona but it will probably be an older process when they get online. Same with TSMC's facility. Maybe that's good enough, there are also very few customers that have the volume to justify spending on the latest process.
> He cited a lot of other articles, isn't making outrageous claims
One of these citations isn't even about chips, but he kind of implies it is. Not to mention, he said that apple stole technology. That has not been proven, the court case hasn't happened yet. Citing sources out of context, and making untrue claims about what the source says, makes the article less compelling in my opinion.
