Saw this coming when Microsoft admitted to have bought up loads of hardware they couldn't actually use yet. I'm convinced the data centre build out is to hoard all the computing capacity so we are forced to use their cloud services because our own hardware isn't capable.

If this keeps up in a couple generations every personal computing device will essentially be a thin client with everything running remotely for a subscription.

Sadly I fear worse, the bulk of people will adapt in the stupidest way...

What's coming... is obvious. When the AI bubble bursts, there will be an absurd amount more data centers than use for them... and all the hardware is in forms that aren't going to be convertable into consumer devices.

What's going to happen is what microsoft, amazon, and google have been dreaming of for a decade... Remember google Stadia, Luna etc...

People won't be buying PCs... they will be buying, thin clients. Your PC will just stream your hardware from a data center. The music and movie industries will be happy because the providers can scan for pirated content... governments may flat out ban individuals from owning personal computers, that's a security risk they can't control, they are already looking into bills to prevent personal AI systems. No worries of people bypassing age verification, or running custom OS's or firmware that can't be controlled.

Best of all it's super profitable, instead of a few grand for a one time purchase, they can hit you up every month... and gradually raise the prices like cable, like movie streaming. Maybe even vendor lockouts... you gotta stream an MS computer to get access to office 365, but you'll also need an amazon subscription to run some other applications, or games or whatever they locked in exclusivity for.

You wish.

In 2015 it would've shipped with a functional operating system.

Pretty sure the entry level machines has 4GB back then

I am fucking 🤏 this close to starting a business where I just slam LMDE on poor people's laptops and put on LXQT and call it a day.

The only problem is that if someone can't afford a new laptop, they can hardly afford to pay me.

Also, I'm only good enough to just shove linux on a shitty computer, not be a 24/7 linux customiser. Also, getting paid to install linux on people's computers seems like it violates... something.