LRwhat if ram buyout is part of a greater attack on personal computing
any other indicators?
the pattern would be: make personal computing expensive, complicated, and unnecessary while making cloud dependence cheap, simple, and required. whether coordinated or emergent, the trajectory is similar - computing power migrating from personal ownership to rental access.
possible indicators:
hardware consolidation:
* RAM concentrated in data centers, not consumer hands
* repair parts increasingly scarce or locked down (right-to-repair battles)
* custom silicon (M-series, Snapdragon X) that's harder to upgrade or swap
* soldered components becoming standard even in "pro" machines
software centralization:
* operating systems pushing cloud dependencies (win 11's ms account requirements, ChromeOS model)
* Adobe, Microsoft, AutoCAD all shifted to subscription models requiring internet validation
* local AI models possible but corporations pushing API-dependent solutions
* progressive web apps replacing locally-run software
knowledge degradation:
* fewer people learning to build PCs or understand their machines
* tech education shifting from "how computers work" to "how to use apps"
* repair culture dying as devices become unrepairable black boxes
* documentation and schematics increasingly proprietary
economic pressure:
* hobbyist computing priced out (current RAM situation)
* home servers becoming impractical vs cloud services
* development tools increasingly cloud-based (GitHub codespaces, cloud IDEs)
honestly, all fairly weak and circumnavigable indicators, but also possibly a death by a thousand cuts.
on the other hand, videogames. a lot more going on for PC. valve's healing influence. is cloud gaming a serious force by now? doubtful.
possible deliberate future attack vectors:
SSD controller chips - a "sudden shortage" would be catastrophic. if NAND controllers became scarce or prohibitively expensive, it would force cloud storage dependence overnight. people couldn't even backup locally anymore.
PSUs - capacitor or transformer supply "disruption" would halt all PC building.
BIOS/UEFI firmware - a "security crisis" requiring signed firmware. approved vendors only or nothing boots
CPU microcode "security patches" - a discovered "fundamental flaw" requiring always-online validation to boot. turns every processor into a subscription service. precedent already exists with Intel Management Engine and AMD PSP.
ethernet/network chips - if networking hardware became scarce or required licensing/authentication.
discrete GPU extinction - already happening organically, but accelerated scarcity would eliminate any serious computing, gaming, or AI work on personal machines.
the plot thickens
"Jeff Bezos said the quiet part out loud — hopes that you'll give up your PC to rent one from the cloud"
https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version
the plot gains further viscosity
"Western Digital is already sold out of hard drives for all of 2026 — chief says some long-term agreements for 2027 and 2028 already in place"
it appears genai sloppers have understood that the only way to win is to destroy their greatest competitor: personal computing.
Keith Judge@lritter Yep, I had planned to hugely upgrade my gaming PC this year, but I think my old one now has a year or two more life in it.
The Seven Voyages Of Steve@KeefJudge @lritter Very much looking forward to component manufacturers grovelling back to their old customers and eating shit when their fly by night flashy customers go bankrupt
Mark Ripley@sinbad @KeefJudge @lritter Oh yes. When OpenAI suddenly pull those orders, and mfrs are sat with warehouses full of unsold stock, hopefully there will be a h/w discount bonanza :)
@sinbad @KeefJudge @lritter Even better, maybe we could coordinate a no-buy situation, so Crucial et al go bust themselves. That'll learn 'em. Power to the people!
@MarkRipley @sinbad @lritter A less optimistic way this could play out is we end up with what are basically terminals with minimal power/RAM, with all the compute power in "cloud" servers (whether LLM or otherwise).
@KeefJudge @MarkRipley @sinbad it's probably going to end up in a narratively dissatisfying split, with a majority living in "computational east germany", and two minorities enjoying full access: upper middle-class professionals and frugal harry tuttles.
@KeefJudge @sinbad @lritter ...which was Larry Ellison's plan all along, if you remember "thin clients" from 20 years ago.
@MarkRipley @KeefJudge @sinbad love it how when i look up this guy and he is immediately associated with another shitty thing i already know about (oracle).
Turing complete chair@archydragon also linked to in this thread
@lritter Ah, sorry, didn't scroll up enough.
𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓹𝓪𝓽𝓱【ツ】☮(📍🇨🇦)there is only one way.
everyone becomes self organized in open supply chains and we together build all the things we need for ourselves and until we dont we depend and essentiallt beg big tech to be nice to us
... essentially giving them time to enshittify things further 🤷♀️
toerror@lritter States need to realise that some things are actually strategic resources, including the whole supply chain and support for those systems.