Collapse of Personal Computing

The AI hype is so destructive.

While I don't believe this to be the end of consumer compute per se, the reality is that these companies take years or a decade to get a foothold in the marketplace and build the infrastructure they need to meet global demand; we can't just "turn back the clock" once the AI hype ends and supply becomes less constrained. That's going to impact the hobby as well as consumers for far longer than this hype cycle lasted, and the final landscape is going to be starkly different than what we grew up with.

The real question mark right now is whether or not the entity list that keeps Chinese companies barred from global markets will continue to be honored as the US hegemony continues deteriorating. This could be a huge opportunity for Chinese suppliers to reach into consumer compute and challenge US cartels for dominance by undercutting on price or delivering superior products, especially if they court Open Source as a means of establishing a credible reputation abroad ("Here's our source code and diagrams so you can prove for yourselves there's no spyware in here").

What objectively sucks today could be quite interesting tomorrow, depending on how things play out.