• empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      What I’m becoming worried about now is all these corporations now realizing that they can simply supply price the average consumer out of owning electronics or any kind of compute. And locking them into renting or leasing access to data center compute and keeping the power of information further consolidated in corporate interests.

      • deliriousdreams@fedia.io
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        3 hours ago

        Aren’t we already seeing that though?

        The vast majority of people who surf the web don’t use a computer to do it. People who do belong to niches. People over a certain age grew up with and still buy computers. People who game still buy computers or consoles. People who stream/create content still use computers and other electronics for that purpose, same with like. Engineers and hobbyists using CAD and other software in creative spaces.

        But the smart phone has overtaken the computer as a personal computing device by quite a large margin now. And at every turn companies are trying to make cell phones a den of ad service, slop, and addictive content while stealing any user data that’s not nailed down to increase their revenue and continue the circle.

      • TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub
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        4 hours ago

        Holy cow that’s a very real danger I hadn’t thought of! The industry needs a new trend to reuse all this capacity they built, because AI will likely scale back as many startups fail to reach profit.

        Renting your home computer might be the next trend, and it could be gratis at first so people get used to it. Why spy on users when you can actually own their computers?

      • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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        4 hours ago

        theyd have to all collorbate to make that happen though, which is really unfeasable on their end. a BUNCH of companies will go under if they cannot sell product. they arent going to willingly take losses for the sake of a different company.

        • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          They don’t really have to collaborate though. They’re proving right now that they can price out consumers by just buying all the hardware capacity up and letting the market take care of the little guys. Hardware manufacturers like Micron are obliging.

          • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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            9 minutes ago

            the ai companies are but that doesnt talk about the hardware specific companies. for example dell, hp and lenovo run a large business laptop leasing business if they do not get their ram, it will sour their relationships with memory manufacturers . they arent all going to be willing to take losses

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        I hope they do, it will just break stuff more and people will be more likely to go with Linux and open source software. My 10 year old computer still is super fast if it’s not bloated.

        • Oxysis/Oxy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 hours ago

          Linux won’t make bullshit pc part prices cheaper. RAM, SSDs, GPUs are all rising in prices because of the AI bubble, used and new are all being affected. Can’t run Linux if the parts are too expensive to even get in the first place.

          • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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            2 hours ago

            My point is that there is existing hardware already out on the secondary market for cheap, and can run most of what anybody needs. All those machines that aren’t up to snuff for Windows 11 standards don’t need to go into the landfill.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      First it was GPUs because crypto, then this. Wonder what useless thing the tech bros will cover up with in a few years!

      • lividweasel@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Article in 2027:

        Keyboard prices soared this month, as tech giants pivoted from failed AI projects to employing hordes of monkeys typing randomly. One CEO was quoted as saying, “Just a few trillion more dollars, and I think our random typing model could reproduce the lost contents of the Library of Alexandria.”

        • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          When in a gold rush, be the one selling shovels.

          I’m off to buy stocks in bananas.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Good luck…

      Even when the bubble bursts, they’re going to have an insane amount of computing power just sitting there, it will get sold off in bankruptcy proceedings, and some company will gobble it up and operate at a loss while continuing to secure future supply contracts.

      There’s a very real chance that we’re witnessing the slow death of home computing.

      The way things shake out it might end up being prohibitively expensive compared to cloud computing, and once that’s the norm they price gouge like Walmart did to destroy small businesses.

      Instead of dropping a couple grand for a PC every couple years, we’ll have steady contracts paying for month at a time indefinitely.

      • Fluffy Kitty Cat@slrpnk.net
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        2 hours ago

        Those GPUs fry themselves in a year or two, and utility prices will put pressure on governments to concept datacenters