@andre_ourednik @terminaltilt You're likely significantly overestimating the difference, and it may not even be a positive one. Servers in datacenters get rotated out and disposed of on a fixed schedule, typically, long before they actually stop working - whereas consumer hardware often gets handed down until it literally breaks.

Not to mention all the technical and resource overhead of remote anything. That network hardware and corresponding power use isn't free to the environment either.

If you're looking for a way to materially reduce the environmental footprint of computing, I would suggest that "the advertising industry" is probably the first place to look instead. They're responsible for a vast, vast chunk of energy and resource usage in computing and networking, while providing marginal to no value to society - it's a purely extractive industry.

Even ignoring the web, look up the power consumption of a single one of those video ad units they put on train stations and in shopping centers, and you'll probably be reeling from just how environmentally wasteful all this stuff is - and consumer hardware will suddenly look like a drop in the bucket. As a teaser: virtually all of those advertising screens have audible active cooling despite sound insulation attempts.

So... no, there's really no environmental point in a rental model. Insofar it makes any positive difference at all, that sure isn't the intention behind it, and all it does is further support an extractive culture that destroys the environment with no consideration for anything but its own profits. You don't even get to choose whether the hardware is turned on anymore. That is not an environmental win.