Post #2694267

2026-02-15 13:01 UTC

A while back, I was thinking about upgrading my living room entertainment PC. It's got a decent video card in it, but some of the other hardware is getting long in the tooth. Now, my plan is to focus on software tweaks to squeeze the absolute best performance I can out of it, and keep the hardware as-is until it starts physically breaking down. And when that happens, I'll find refurbished hardware to upgrade it with, rather than spending the exorbitant fees to buy anything new. What mystifies me about all this is that it's obvious what the end goal is: No more PCs, and everyone just rents dumb terminals connected to AI data centers that run everything and have all the compute power. The problem is that **literally no one but AI companies want that**. Not consumers, and not other companies that sell software and services to consumers. When cars replaced carriages, it was because people actually wanted them. Cars had real-world benefits over horses. But this shit? No one wants it. Gamers want game performance you simply can't get with streamed games. People who work with computers for a living don't want their ability to do anything to vanish if their ISP has an outage. Shit's gonna get stupid, fast.

Replies (4)

@skip0110@lemmy.zip 2026-02-15 14:00

Its the "service economy." Instead of making things, industry (in the US at least) is heavily skewed towards providing services (aka things you subscribe to or need to buy each time you use). It does not benefit the individual.

Open ##2694404
@BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 2026-02-15 13:54

They BADLY want to be able to monitor our every communication, because an authoritarian government that sees North Korea as a prime example, needs to be able to clamp down hard on any notion of dissent. And we will have huge work camps all over America to send seditious traitors to, to be leased out as slaves to corporations, under the 13th Amendment. You love your precious Constitution, don't you? You expect MAGA to abide by every word, don't you? Well then you better love the 13th Amendment, too.

Open ##2694405
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2026-02-15 14:02

It's awful. I bought a second laptop for general use, because I wanted a Linux laptop and a gaming-dedicated laptop running Windows. (Seeing as how digital surveillance made privacy more important.) I got a very nice, used Acer for about $600 that runs everything I need AND functions well with a dual-boot, so I was thinking of selling my gaming laptop. Now? I'm holding onto it so I don't have to get price gouged if my main computer fails. Wild world we live in.

Open ##2694406
@rekabis@lemmy.ca 2026-02-15 19:06

Businesses want AI because it solves what they perceive as a problem: how to obtain labour without having to pay said labour. Remember: AI is meant for wealth to access labour without cost, not for labour to access wealth. It’s a golden gate meant to permanently separate the wealthy from what used to be the working class.

Open ##2694407