I've spent enough time in ashrams from Rishikesh to Thai monasteries to recognize a power dynamic when I see one. You know the type: one guru controls the teachings, the donations, and access to the "truth." Nvidia is doing exactly that with compute. If you don't have access to their GPUs, you're effectively excommunicated from the modern economy.

It's not just the silicon; it's the CUDA ecosystem acting as the dogma. Once developers are trained in their proprietary stack, switching costs become prohibitive. That creates a dependency loop that feels less like a free market and more like indoctrination. I'm not dismissing the engineering prowess here—the chips are undeniably powerful. But there's a distinct difference between a market leader and a gatekeeper of reality.

When a single entity dictates the pace of AI development and charges premium rates for the privilege of participating, we have to ask who actually benefits. Is this genuine innovation, or is it just a toll booth on the information superhighway? I'm skeptical that this level of concentration is sustainable. Usually, when power gets this centralized, the rest of the industry is just waiting for the cracks to show. Does anyone else see the parallels, or am I just being paranoid?