The computing power available today is such a double-edged sword. We can do so much more so much faster, but then we (including myself in this) waste so many cycles on abstractions and frameworks and layers of libraries to make our development jobs easier.

Anytime inflation comes up and the relative power of computing devices is mentioned, I remember the classic[1] line that you can’t eat an iPad.

Computing is definitely cheaper, but crappy software seems to always seams to step up to the occasion and use up the extra cycles.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/ipad-price-remark-ge...

I'm still using ~10 year old PCs at both work and home. Running linux, still doing fine.

its worth noting that you were much less restricted with this 6k computer in 1996. today we are paying ever more for walled gardens that will eventually become nothing more than a portal to cloud services. we are not returning to a previous position, we are moving to a world where everything will be a thin client.

You may have equivalent power on that $6 computer but can you run the same applications?

1996 was 30 years ago. What about comparing prices from 3 years ago? 2023 vs 2026.

Ordinary people do not buy devices for their computing power, they buy them for their utility. People will look at this and see only a device that delivers the exact same utility as before, but now with higher cost.

See perhaps this 1991 Radio Shack ad (from a 2014 article):

    There are 15 electronic gimzo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket.
   
    So here’s the list of what I’ve replaced with my iPhone.
    
    * All weather personal stereo, [**US**]$11.88. I now use my iPhone with an Otter Box.
    * AM/FM clock radio, $13.88. iPhone.
    * In-Ear Stereo Phones, $7.88. Came with iPhone.
    * Microthin calculator, $4.88. Swipe up on iPhone.
    * Tandy 1000 TL/3, $1599. I actually owned a Tandy 1000, and I used it for games and word processing. I now do most of both of those things on my phone.
    * VHS Camcorder, $799. iPhone.
    * Mobile Cellular Telephone, $199. Obvs.
    * Mobile CB, $49.95. Ad says “You’ll never drive ‘alone’ again!” iPhone.
    * 20-Memory Speed-Dial phone, $29.95.
    * Deluxe Portable CD Player, $159.95. 80 minutes of music, or 80 hours of music? iPhone.
    * 10-Channel Desktop Scanner, $99.55. I still have a scanner, but I have a scanner app, too. iPhone.
    * Easiest-to-Use Phone Answerer, $49.95. iPhone voicemail.
    * Handheld Cassette Tape Recorder, $29.95. I use the Voice Memo app almost daily.
    * BONUS REPLACEMENT: It’s not an item for sale, but at the bottom of the ad, you’re instructed to ‘check your phone book for the Radio Shack Store nearest you.’ Do you even know how to use a phone book?
   
    You’d have spent [US]$3,054.82 in 1991 to buy all the stuff in this ad that you can now do with your phone. 

That US$1600 (in 1991) Tandy 1600 runs a 286 CPU and has a 20MB hard drive, and supported 640×200×16 resolution (720×350 mode for monochrome monitors):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000#Tandy_1000_SL_and_T...

Well Conversely, in 1996 you, your spouse, your kids, didnt need a pc to live your lives - having a pc or mac was something of a luxury

Today smartphones, laptops and the internet are the base currency of the digital world - theres a reason Apple is so wealthy

I agree. But also back then you could buy a house and support a family with one salary as a trash truck driver. Today we spend years investing in masters and PhD-s to still live with roommates and consider buying food a luxury. Especially after the COVID hikes.

So even though chasing trends and always 'needing to buy' whatever new model Apple pumps out is idiotic, let's also not shill for big corporations.

And software is now so cheap, or free, that it's incredibly difficult to even start and maintain a single-member LLC software business.

it'd be more instructive to compare what you get from apple silicon compared to x86 and ARM.

And yet in some ways, modern computers feel slower than those from decades ago. Software today is so, so much less efficient than it was back then.

That is such an unfair comparison though. The reason we are now getting completely screwed on consumer electronics is because massive corporations just get to bully around the rest of the world and we have zero control over it.

Building a gaming PC right now is no longer affordable. I can't even upgrade my hard drives because they have tripled in price. And it's all because of good old capitalism.

The expectation was never that it would go back to being increasingly more expensive gen over gen especially at higher specs.

You could buy an m3-ultra with 512GBs of unified memory at around $ 14'000 3 years ago, and that's with the already insane nonsense Apple memory markup. As a reference, the same model with 96GB costed $ 3'999. 2'000, 3'000 $ more for the 512GB model? Okay... But 10?

Furthermore, you're lucky if you can get that 3 year old machine at 25'000 $, used! Let alone they haven't even provided a similar machine for two gens.

So essentially we're going both _backwards_ and more expensive, year after year, with zero signs of any reversion till the end of the decade.

Ffs, my colleagues brand new m2 had half the ram of my 2011 MBP. 12 years later!

This is absolute madness we have never seen.

[dead]

[dead]

Computers got cheap due to necessity. The necessity is still there and raising prices is a rug pull.

That's great, but then can you ask the manufacturers of the devices to support them for 20 years? Raw numbers mean jack shit if the device itself is completely abandoned and cannot run any applications. Banking, authentication and bunch of services require the device to be on the latest iOS/Android version, which is hard to do because the manufacturer dropped it like a hot brick after 5 years.