TaggartFeb 15

You see what's happening right?

They are preventing you from accessing the means of computing, making you reliant on their services in the future they're building.

At astronomical rents.

https://wccftech.com/western-digital-has-no-more-hdd-capacity-left-out/

Western Digital Has No More HDD Capacity Left, as CEO Reveals Massive AI Deals; Brace Yourself For Price Surges Ahead!

HDD capacity from one of the world's largest manufacturers has started to run dry, according to WD's CEO, as major LTAs have been signed out.

Wccftech
Show threadDexFeb 16
@mttaggart I don't believe in this take, and I'm especially not a big fan of the conspiratorial language you're using to describe it. How does a large spike in demand for a monopolized industry give any indication that the goal is to move users over to cloud computing? What makes this different from the pandemic shortage, or the 2011 Japan earthquake? From my perspective, this takes away from a lot of the closer, very concrete problems AI is causing right now.
Show threadDiogo ConstantinoFeb 16
@threedollarchickenparm @mttaggart a few months ago Bezos said on an interview that in the future all workloads will be on the cloud. This doesn't prove all of them want or are planning and trying to kill personal computing without the cloud, but certainly some are.
Show threadDex

@DiogoConstantino @mttaggart I'm going to assume you mean the interview described here, please correct me if you mean something else:

https://youtu.be/s71nJQqzYRQ?t=3110

To me, Lex Luthor repeatedly referring to AWS in this segment tells me that he's thinking about data centres rather than personal computing. Amazon has consumer facing cloud products like Luna that could have been name dropped. Thats why the brewery metaphor gets so much attention. Every ChatGPT wrapper running their own data centre actually is turbo unsustainable!

I could see Amazon selling people on a subscription to a traditional laptop or desktop. We already have seen that with companies with Corsair and HP. But to me, the number of articles I see misinterpreting this interview screams of a propaganda campaign to make subscription hardware seem reasonable.

The Interview: From Amazon to Space — Jeff Bezos Talks Innovation, Progress and What’s Next

YouTube
Feb 16 at 4:19pmWeb
Show threadDiogo ConstantinoFeb 16
@threedollarchickenparm @mttaggart I think it's.
Show threadDiogo ConstantinoFeb 16

@threedollarchickenparm @mttaggart I can see that too, but I can also see PC's becoming not much more than glorified dumb terminals that display what is computed on the cloud, and run workloads that companies don't want to pay for, or that just do some processing of data acquire by peripherals, or data to feed peripherals.

Eventually, AWS will f* their enterprise customers, but not before being useful to them while f* end consumers.

Show threadDexFeb 16

@DiogoConstantino @mttaggart I welcome the difference in opinion on the future of computing, but there's little evidence that cloud-only hardware is the direction we're headed in right now. There's especially no evidence in the short term.

Subscription-based hardware should be the point of concern as it still erodes the consumers right to ownership, and it's already happening. Heck, PlayStation UK just announced an official avenue for leasing the PS5 three days ago.

Every mainstream news outlet focusing on the idea of cloud-only computing only makes subscription-based hardware seem relatively reasonable.

Also, treating this idea as a reality also takes away from conversations about the very real, concrete problems with AI. We're implying that the trillions of dollars being spent on creating a machine to replace workers is actually for a different (and I would argue less evil) purpose.