Pay particular attention to item 3 below,.

Source - Below paragraphs generated by Perplexity Deep Research that includes information from 43 sources including Wikipedia - Enshittification:

VMware under Broadcom demonstrates the classic enshittification pattern with remarkable precision:

1. Lock-in exploitation: VMware's market dominance—used by roughly 80% of organizations for infrastructure products—meant customers couldn't easily switch. With approximately 375,000 customers globally running thousands of virtual machines in production environments, complete migration was "highly unlikely" for large enterprises.^abiresearch

2. Value extraction over value creation: Broadcom's explicit goal was to "monetize the top 600 customers and shed the rest", focusing entirely on revenue extraction rather than product improvement. The company's earnings reports showed that the VMware acquisition more than doubled its software division, demonstrating successful financial extraction.^remio

3. Degradation of service: Beyond price increases, Broadcom discontinued the free ESXi hypervisor used for testing and lab environments, reduced partner support options, and made accessing security patches contingent on expensive subscriptions.^{parkplacetechnologies}

4. Minimal restraint: As Doctorow's framework predicts, enshittification occurs when "the collapse of discipline" allows companies to act without competitive, regulatory, or market constraints. Broadcom faced minimal effective pushback despite lawsuits and regulatory complaints, with 87% of VMware's top 10,000 customers eventually signing VCF agreements.^newyorker

The VMware situation perfectly illustrates what one industry observer described as "the classic case of enshittification—where a platform degrades in value to the user to extract maximum value for the shareholder". Even if Broadcom were to reverse course, "the trust is gone" and "the threat of future audits and contract changes remains".^remio

This transformation wasn't caused by technological requirements or competitive pressures—it was, as Doctorow would say, done "on purpose". Broadcom's CEO Hock Tan explicitly framed the strategy as maximizing value from each customer rather than keeping every customer, embodying the enshittifier's credo of creating value only to harvest it entirely.^{youtube washingtonmonthly}

These systems still work great for many even 9+ years later, mine included, even with (unsupported) vSphere 8 and Windows 11 Version 21H2. But as far as official support from VMware ESXi or Microsoft Windows 11, it's the end of the line. It's okay, we had a really good run.

In mid-2021, after 6 successful years testing then shipping well over 1,000 Xeon D Bundles, Wiredzone had to stop SuperServer bundles due to cost, supply, and logistics challenges. Bare bones system sales continued for years longer.

What's next in 2026? I don't yet have my answer for my home lab, especially now that VCF certification is required to keep non-production home lab licenses going, even as a vExpert and VMUG Advantage EVALExperience customer.

The Xeon D-1700/2700 (Ice Lake D) was a minor refresh for 2023, with Xeon D-1800/2800 (Granite Rapids D) refresh slightly better in 2024, and hopefully Xeon 6 (Granite Rapids-D) much better in 2025 featuring PCIe Gen5, MCRDIMMs, and 100GbE networking, wow! Feb. 27 2025 update looks promising, but pricey. Same goes for the Supermicro SYS-E403-14B-FRN2T Review The Super Cool 1P Edge Server, available at Supermicro eStore, but this fairly small beast is 400 watts under load, and isn't suited for using any 3.5" drives you may still want to use.

Unfortunately, it's become clear to me that Supermicro is less focused on the mini-tower form factor these days, and Broadcom isn't interested in supporting home labs.

As for the CPU industry, it's unfortunate that Pat Gelsinger was apparently ousted from Intel's helm in these challenging times, but I'm also grateful to have had the honor of working at VMware when he was the CIO there. I'll leave it at that, given the whole Broadcom thing.