Framework: ' personal computing as we know it is dead'

This is the actual quote: "There is a very real scenario in which personal computing as we know it is dead." He went on to say this, as reported in another article [1]:

> Still, Framework said that it will not take this lying down. Its event announcement also doubled as its own manifesto, saying that "as long as there is a person in the world who still wants to own their means of computation, we will be here to build the hardware that enables it," and that it "will always be fighting for a future where you can own everything and be free."

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/big-tech/framewor...

The quote is in response to high component prices, and assumes that its causing a migration to hosted services.

My computer has a cheap 35W APU that is as capable as a mid-to-high end CPU and GPU were a decade before it was released. It can play ten-year-old games without a problem, and I have no reason to upgrade, because new games aren't much better. (Seriously, I have Kerbel Space Program and Cities Skylines, and I really lucked out by not getting the newer versions.)

Cloud providers are hosting neural networks like stable diffusion and large language models that are nearly matched by models that can run on a home computer with a mid-to-high end CPU and GPU. They're tripping over themselves trying to win over the customer base, but all they're doing is driving up the hardware prices, with little increase in revenue.

It is also driving up prices for consumer hardware, but consumers just hold off on purchases, until prices go down. These cloud providers are burning through capitol, with no signs of any of them producing anything more than a commodity service, so they will eventually have to go bankrupt or sell themselves off for their assets.

Meanwhile, much like video games over the last decade, better hardware isn't making their offerings any better, so once a cheap APU can run models that currently require a mid-to-high end CPU and GPU, local models will be more responsive than their offerings, at no marginal cost, and their user base will dry up.

A bubble in the RAM/storage market isn't what's going to kill off personal computing. That's going to happen from "safety" regulations that require all software running on a privately-owned computer to verify the users identity against a government database and only allow approved software to run.

On the flip side, tiny computers like raspberry pi or esp32 are becoming more capable. If the industry doesn't want us building desktop computers we will just need to switch to raspberry pi clusters

People like to be dramatic about things that will level off as supply catches up to demand.