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Structural analysis of AI infrastructure economics. All articles CC BY-SA 4.0. RSS feed ↗

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The Wrong Game - Why Xbox Is Answering Microsoft’s Margin Question

3 July 2026 · raw .md ↗

Microsoft voluntarily disclosed Xbox's internal margin after twenty-five years of absorbing worse losses quietly. The question is not whether Xbox deserved a reset but why the only window into internal economics opened for the business unit furthest from the question investors are actually asking.

The Silicon Industrialists - Part 2: Tech’s Great Escape

19 June 2026 · raw .md ↗

Every major infrastructure technology before software followed the same path: massive capital, consolidation, capture. The personal computer, independent software, and the open internet broke that pattern because specific institutional decisions opened the substrate before anyone could close it. Part 2 traces the escape and asks what held the ladder in place.

The Silicon Industrialists - Part 1: AI's Gilded Age

27 May 2026 · raw .md ↗

AI's costs are industrial. Its revenue mechanisms are dissolving. The collision between these two forces is pushing the most transformative technology in a generation toward regression, through infrastructure dependencies, venture capital, startup absorption, and the capture of open source. Part 1 of a series on the economic forces shaping AI.

Two Bridges to the Same Place: Why the AI Model Race Proves the Model Doesn't Matter

14 April 2026 · raw .md ↗

The competition between frontier AI labs is itself the proof that the model layer is commoditising. The labs matching each other in compressed timeframes, the platform owners building model-agnostic infrastructure, and open-weight models closing the gap from below. These three convergence forces reproduce the structural pattern of the browser war, where the winner didn't get to keep the winnings.