Well I mean all it takes is a better offer, and all you need for that is more money. Wouldn't necessarily call it influence but yeah, it's still crazy either way.

TSMC isn’t a purely monetary profit driven company, though your right usually they do business as if they were. Because 100% of something is much different than 99% in B2B and at this scale. Though of course TSMC is a bit special because they are comfortably ahead on something that the only possible competitors are even more unlikely to do exclusivity.

Selling products made with that technology is what drives the technology further.

Until Intel has real products talking about their 10nm is pointless. Intel for the first time has nothing. So tsmc’s 7/5nm is superior is every way.