Why PC sales are declining: Old PCs still work just fine | Hacker News Reader

Why PC sales are declining: Old PCs still work just fine

slate.com

4 pointsivanmaeder5 comments

...or software developers aren't creating new apps that are making them feel slow.

Or, slightly differently, the applications aren't as compelling.

Web browsers, for example, are focusing on improving performance on the same hardware (faster javascript) over compelling features (What happened to VRML? I don't know if I really want it, but there is definitely less experimentation today). Windows has for all intents and purposes become the only thing people upgraded for in the past 5 years, and even Windows 8 (as a similarly-named, recent article notes) isn't doing so hot. It's easy to say Windows is to blame, but if it is at all, I think it's just the latest disappointment. Software isn't pushing any limits, which is not for a lack of them. People develop for the browser now. Only 3D games push the local hardware today (and even they have gotten pretty formulaic).

From my own experience, I used to be excited about games, for example, and bought hardware to run new software. The games aren't compelling for me. And the OS lost me with XP (Geniune Advantage specifically alienated me), so I stick mostly to Linux these days. The push to enforce copyright has made me less interested in the shiny toys - I don't try them so I don't get hooked - the same toys I used to buy hardware to try (a game borrowed from a friend, a new beta of Windows... I couldn't get enough). It's the copyright stuff that really alienated me.

Couple that with the surge in neutered, pseudo-computer tablets, and the most of the eyeball time being spent on TV-like YouTube, etc, and computationally very-simple sites like Facebook, and yeah, the hardware doesn't really need to change. I don't think the platform is mature or anything, just that developers are more conservative. (Leaving me not surprised to see 20 year old software shops close down.)

Today, the Web rules, P2P is almost illegal, and Internet speeds have pretty much stopped growing. 3D isn't getting all that much better, and what gaming there is has largely gone away from the PC to the brand-name console that lends itself to strict license enforcement. Computers just aren't that fun these days.

But maybe this has been the trend for a while? Ten years ago Steve Jobs was pushing the Mac as a "digital hub for your life" and not much has changed since then. I don't just blame the box but everything around it: The speed most people experience the internet at hasn't changed that much, chips use less energy but the speed increases aren't enough to notice a real difference, etc.

Yup. Not much has changed in a decade. Software developers have been playing nice (to hardware manufacturers and existing information-oriented institutions), developing mostly low-resource web-apps that comply with social expectations and kowtow to imaginary property. Distributed hash tables were the one of the last real disruptive practical innovations in software and they are not being applied to everything they could (DNS, NAT-traversal, IPv6 transition, mutlicast, anonymity) largely out of fear of waking the baby.

I used to upgrade for games too, but that was a long time ago. And I assume gamers mostly build their own PCs instead of buying them from HP and Dell.

I'm not sure if the newer versions of Windows are slower, but an iMac I bought in 2009 which now runs the latest version of Mac OS X feels just as fast today as it did back then.

The only hardware upgrade that I think is worth it these days is going from a regular spinning HDD to an SSD. That jump is massive and I can understand why manufacturers might hold back on pushing SSDs for now: it gives them a bit of room in the future to sell better performance (you just can't notice differences in CPU performance doing email, web, audio and video). If that's what they're doing...

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