It's not evil, it's the most effective way to provide a CPU capable of meeting everyone's needs at the cheapest possible prices.

If they had to design and manufacture a chip at every tier it would be far more costly, and they would have to pass those costs on to the consumer.

They did design and manufacture a chip that is completely capable of all of the functionality - the economies of scale are completely in their favor. And now they want to make more money by pretending as though the chip is not capable.

In fact, it took them even MORE effort to design and manufacture in the ability to ACT STUPID, until you pay up.

OK, let's imagine Intel only sold fully enabled chips, so their cheapest processor is now $300. Do you want that? Does your mom want that?

I live in Minneapolis, which is a hub city for Delta airlines. It is quite often MUCH cheaper for me to drive to Chicago, and get a flight that connects through Minneapolis to my final destination, than it is to book a flight from Minneapolis to my final destination. Yes, it makes financial sense for Delta and Intel to do this, from their perspectives. As a consumer, it sucks, and you can't convince me it doesn't suck.

Intel is offering to sell intentionally disabled hardware at a lowered price, because they want the opportunity to up-sell the more advanced features, later.

And I'm perfectly within my rights to say, "Hell, no. And no one else should buy that product, either. If we all reject it, they'll abandon this ploy."

If Intel can manufacture a chip capable of X, Y, and Z, then that's awesome. Don't go out of your way to disable Z, in an attempt to squeeze more money out of me. It doesn't COST THEM ANYTHING to have Z enabled on my chip. It does in fact cost them to add hardware to artificially disable Z.

Intel has figured out how to mass produce Mustang Shelby GT 500's and sell them at the price of a Ford Fiesta... with the ability to "unlock" 600 horsepower.

In order for Intel to be a successful business, they need to sell to every level of the processor market. They need a chip at the 700MHz tier, a chip at the 3.5GHz tier, and dozens of tiers in between. It's expected. It's necessary.

It is absolutely infeasible for them to design and manufacture individual chips at every one of those tiers. They cannot set aside entire factories and supply lines for every level of consumer need. If they were to do so, the price of 700MHz chip would start at $300+, and only go up from there. That's the nature of the economy of CPU design and manufacturing.

Now, instead of doing that, they only design four or five chips, each at the top end of their respective tier, and build into each of those chips a means of "hobbling" them to fill the dozens of tiers in between. This allows them to spread the total cost of the chip across several segments of the market, particularly into those segments that would otherwise be unable to afford to purchase a chip at all.

This does not mean they put additional effort into hobbling those chips, it means they saved a great deal of effort by not explicitly designing and manufacturing a chip that would otherwise fill that specific niche.

What you're asking for is that they only offer chips that include features X, Y, and Z. Those chips cost $600, and there are no other options, because it would not be cost-effective for them to design a chip that only included features X and Y.

Let's really do this conversation from step one. Write down the words you'd like me to say, that would satisfy you. I think you want me to say, "They have a right to sell this product." I've already said that. What more do you want from me???

I declare it's an awful way to relate to ME as their customer to build an amazing chip, and then hobble it. It makes me resent them, and want to seek out their competitors.

Now, explain to me how those emotions they've instilled in me help make them a successful business.

Sure, that's your right as a consumer.

One of the reasons they can get away with it is because there is no competing product.