“Affordable entry-level computers may ‘disappear by 2028’ according to one forecast.

[bob@epicyon.libreserver.org]

@aral It will only continue for years if the construction of massive data centres continues, which seems unlikely given the lack of return on investment.

[davidculley@hachyderm.io]

@aral Best hoard all the refurbished computers.

Maybe the companies that are so clueless as to go all-in on "AI" when everyone else knows the bubble is about to pop, are just as clueless to let their perfectly fine hardware go to refurbishers as the leasing contracts expire.

[flockofcats@famichiki.jp]

@aral

Uggg I hope the mid-range computer I built in 2020 has a lot of life left in it!

[fog@fosstodon.org]

@aral I hope the bubble will burst well before 2028.

[lukefromdc@kolektiva.social]

@aral This also means older computers all the way back to the Core 2 Duo and certainly the Core 2 Quad and Athon X4 now have a minimum value on places like Ebay.

Nobody is going to throw away a computer that can be resold for several hundred dollars. One of the reasons we see the windoze update cycle denying support for older machines may be the simple fact that the Core 2 quad, Athlon X4, and all later quad core or more chips and for many jobs dual cores too can still do the job.

Guess what? These machines still work just fine on Linux folks, especially if you are not concerned with gaming. For video editing (my most important desktop task), the same chips that did it in 2010 can do it today with some adjustments to effects I didn't use at that time.

If my AMD Ryzen box dies, I have an Athlon X4 on standby as well as my laptop, so I won't have to spend more money to stay out of cloud computing (AKA corporate-owned computers with zero privacy).

[androcat@toot.cat]

@aral
I don't think the word is "obsolete".

If someone hoards all the grain, bread doesn't become "obsolete".

Instead, Guillotines become fashionable.

[martijnveken@infosec.exchange]

@aral all those "obsolete" computers that can't run the latest version of Windows or MacOS any more can run perfectly on Linux. There can be an opportunity somewhere hidden in this mess. In the Netherlands there is a great initiative to refurbish laptops with Linux and hand them out to people that can't afford one: https://www.laptoprevive.nl/ (sorry Dutch). @LaptopRevive

[thebratdragon@mastodon.scot]

@martijnveken @aral @LaptopRevive

there needs to be an education that, computers that cannot run latest windows, is deliberate to make you upgrade, not the fault of the current machine, and that older os's are fine to run if you take proper online care.

[kkarhan@mastodon.social]

@aral Redistribute the means of Computing!

- And I mean that said servers and their parts need to get disowned and redistribute towards users!

[stman@mastodon.social]

@kkarhan The client/server conceot needs to be abolished definitively !

And this is exactly one of the goals we target with alternative cyberspace architectures and conceot we research in our crypto-anarchist federation !

Cyber-powers to the people !

@aral

[kkarhan@mastodon.social]

@fog @aral +9001%