which was confusing until the actual legal analysts finished their opinion pieces. And it became apparent that this is not the outcome epic wanted. They would have to pay Apple millions of dollars. And sure, Apple was required to allow developers to include buttons linking to third-party payment options within NUMBER_TOKEN days but they successfully won a stay on that order. And with both Apple and Epic appealing the result, it's unclear what if anything was actually accomplished this year other than getting Fortnite gamers all riled up. There's a lot more to this story. And in fact, I'm almost done my tech longer on it. So stay tuned for tech longer number two. This video is probably already too long. But the Apple versus Epic was a canary in the antitrust mine because almost every major company was investigated for anti-competitive this and exploiting dominance that. Aye yai yai. It's not in the Christmas spirit at all. NVIDIA continued trying to buy Arm for over a year, a deal that was actively opposed by Qualcomm, Google and others. Who would have to deal with NVIDIA gloating about being basically the most important chip maker in the world if it went through. I don't want that. As of this month, the FTC has sued NVIDIA to block the acquisition. So I wouldn't hold your breath if you are a fan, big fan of NVIDIA buying other companies. This year, Google threatened to suspend Australia's search privileges. And Facebook blocked Australian users from sharing news links because the boys down there wanted Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for the privilege of linking to Australian news articles. Both companies eventually made big cash deals with Australia news conglomerates just before Australia passed the law that would see them fined otherwise. Never try to bluff an Ozzie. They've played Knifey Spoony too many times. Google and Apple also made plays that were marketed as privacy wins for consumers. But which actually solidified their power over their respective ad ecosystems. Google's FLoC system to replace third-party cookies ended up being delayed until NUMBER_TOKEN due to industry concerns. But Apple's tracking transparency feature is currently live in iOS NUMBER_TOKEN. Although Apple also added the ability for iOS users to opt out of Apple's own tracking in addition to third-party advertisers. And lastly, Microsoft got all anti-trustee for a second when they made it super difficult to change the default browser in Windows NUMBER_TOKEN to anything other than Edge. But eventually backtracked after they realized everyone saw exactly what they're doing. It's like, why are you sneaking? Why are you sneaking around? I can see, oh, Microsoft. But perhaps the story that affected nearly everyone this year is the global supply chain issues that made buying electronics harder than the lump of coal I'm putting in my son's stocking this year. Why won't he sleep? In February, it was thought the shortages would last maybe until June or later, which eventually got amended to mean until NUMBER_TOKEN, small typo. While some combination of pandemic inspired dips and spikes in demand are thought to have initially caused the shortages, for PC gamers, things were exacerbated by crypto miners and scalpers buying up stock of GPUs as soon as it was available, leading NVIDIA to rerelease old models like the GTX NUMBER_TOKEN TI.
START_SELFPROMO_TOKEN up. There's a lot more to this story. And in fact, I'm almost done my tech longer on it. So stay tuned for tech longer number two. This video is probably already too long. END_SELFPROMO_TOKEN