The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*. The only way for hardware sales to go in future is *down* because your next PC or Mac will work just fine until it breaks or dies of old age. So by ramping prices artificially via this RAM/SSD futures bullshit, they're keeping profits high for as long as possible.
@cstross There's also the "hardware still works fine but software goes planned-obsolescence" route, but Microsoft just did that a few months ago and it'll be awhile before they can get away with doing it again.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*. The only way for hardware sales to go in future is *down* because your next PC or Mac will work just fine until it breaks or dies of old age. So by ramping prices artificially via this RAM/SSD futures bullshit, they're keeping profits high for as long as possible.
@cstross (unless it kills the industry)
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*. The only way for hardware sales to go in future is *down* because your next PC or Mac will work just fine until it breaks or dies of old age. So by ramping prices artificially via this RAM/SSD futures bullshit, they're keeping profits high for as long as possible.
@cstross I am willing to entertain the "we're going to get rid of consumer computer hardware that isn't rented" scenario.
In the 1970s, there was a thriving market for making, selling, and applying custom/aftermarket car parts. The entire auto industry systematically murdered it by successively moving cars into a space where you couldn't do that. It's not like we don't know a large market can't be expunged.
The incumbents have a strong general incentive to keep people from having options.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*. The only way for hardware sales to go in future is *down* because your next PC or Mac will work just fine until it breaks or dies of old age. So by ramping prices artificially via this RAM/SSD futures bullshit, they're keeping profits high for as long as possible.
@cstross Yeah, I recently came to a similar conclusion.
I had replaced the fans in my 4 year old laptop and now it is ... just fine. Like I'm actually no longer even considering replacing it.
Now I did buy a ridiculous laptop 4 years ago, but still.
I wonder how many people could extend the life if their machines by just cleaning out the dust/replacing the fans.
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I just noticed I have 18Tb of storage plugged into my desktop (a laptop with its own 2Tb of built-in SSD) and WTF am I doing with it all?!?
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I just noticed I have 18Tb of storage plugged into my desktop (a laptop with its own 2Tb of built-in SSD) and WTF am I doing with it all?!?
@cstross /dev/random > randomnes_store_for_later_use.txt
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@cstross (unless it kills the industry)
@Kierkegaanks It probably *will* kill the industry. A lot of smaller VARs will go out of business, bigger ones will see sales stagnate and be forced to put up prices b/c the data center futures bids are ramping prices, then the bubble will burst and we're in Great Depression 2.0. Not much will come through that intact.
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I just noticed I have 18Tb of storage plugged into my desktop (a laptop with its own 2Tb of built-in SSD) and WTF am I doing with it all?!?
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@markdennehy @blogdiva Actually most of that storage is redundant backup drives
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@cstross I am willing to entertain the "we're going to get rid of consumer computer hardware that isn't rented" scenario.
In the 1970s, there was a thriving market for making, selling, and applying custom/aftermarket car parts. The entire auto industry systematically murdered it by successively moving cars into a space where you couldn't do that. It's not like we don't know a large market can't be expunged.
The incumbents have a strong general incentive to keep people from having options.
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@cstross /dev/random > randomnes_store_for_later_use.txt
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@cstross Yeah, I recently came to a similar conclusion.
I had replaced the fans in my 4 year old laptop and now it is ... just fine. Like I'm actually no longer even considering replacing it.
Now I did buy a ridiculous laptop 4 years ago, but still.
I wonder how many people could extend the life if their machines by just cleaning out the dust/replacing the fans.
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@markdennehy @blogdiva Actually most of that storage is redundant backup drives
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
The unadmitted reason this is happening (and the AI bubble besides): Moore's Law *has ended*. The only way for hardware sales to go in future is *down* because your next PC or Mac will work just fine until it breaks or dies of old age. So by ramping prices artificially via this RAM/SSD futures bullshit, they're keeping profits high for as long as possible.
@cstross ...which only works for as long as nobody else can start producing alternative hardware.
And, come on: decades-old DDR3 is barely 5 times slower than modern DDR5. For most practical uses, cheap and somewhat slower than top-end memory would be perfectly fine.
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@jackwilliambell @cstross you could just /dev/random > /dev/null
But if we talk TB you might want to switch to a managed service like
https://devnull-as-a-service.com/ -
@furicle @cstross It is not what it was and a whole lot of effort has gone into, e.g. doing things with on board computers to prevent off-brand parts. (Not, in autos, as much as in heavy machinery including farm machinery.) "Right to repair" didn't start with small electronic gadgets.
Or look at the cost of replacing a headlight; lots of effort has gone into making you buy the big assembly and not either a standard headlight or replacing a bulb.
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I just noticed I have 18Tb of storage plugged into my desktop (a laptop with its own 2Tb of built-in SSD) and WTF am I doing with it all?!?
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@furicle @cstross It is not what it was and a whole lot of effort has gone into, e.g. doing things with on board computers to prevent off-brand parts. (Not, in autos, as much as in heavy machinery including farm machinery.) "Right to repair" didn't start with small electronic gadgets.
Or look at the cost of replacing a headlight; lots of effort has gone into making you buy the big assembly and not either a standard headlight or replacing a bulb.
@graydon @furicle This goes back a long way, though. I remember being appalled in 1991 when the windscreen wiper on my car packed up and discovering it needed a sealed assembly with motor, gearing, and two arms to fix it—it wasn't designed to be repairable. (I shared a house with a car kitbasher, though, so he got it working again: opened it up and replaced the stripped plastic gear.)
