Collapse of Personal Computing: Investigation into the Destruction of Ownership [video]

This is just what growth at all costs looks like

> And we're not the only ones interpreting this as if the AI companies have ambitions of leveraging rising prices to convert the possibility of computer ownership into rentership. Just as we've seen with home ownership, it's as if Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Meta, and Google are digital lords of a feudalistic kingdom, accepting perpetual rent for a spot on their cloud as ownership is priced out of possibility. Many of our contacts in the industry, catering to consumers buying and owning highly personalized PCs, also think they see this trajectory.

> "They're not even trying to help us. I think for them, it would be even great if none of us exists. So they can just do whatever they want."

> "I think eventually component business is going to shrink even more. Sustaining your business can shrink as well because a lot of this will become AI based, cloud-based kind of a program. So then people don't need to have a system at home anymore. They can just have a handheld, basically a terminal to play."

> "We've definitely seen an increasing trend in rental programs or cloud compute services, right? And so, as much as we'd love for you to buy and own, we do recognize that the individual's financial situation is ultimately going to be the determining factor. If they need access to powerful compute and they can't afford to go out and build a PC, sure they might do a rental program, GeForce Now, right?"

> The consumer PC industry as we've known it our entire lives, that's gone. Like it's gone gone. We're so far gone that the consumers aren't buying this stuff anymore.

Holy shit this past 5+ years has got to be one of the darkest moments many of us saw in our entire lives. We've steadily been sleepwalking into a society where nothing binds the rich and powerful while the rest of us pays the price, but we've been accelerating towards that outcome even more in the past few years. Computing is so deeply integrated into our lives that the loss of personal ownership over computing will be one of the final blows to our freedoms and our very way of living.