

Why PC sales are declining: Old PCs still work just fine - ivanmaeder
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/12/why_pc_sales_are_declining_old_pcs_still_work_just_fine.html

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

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vy8vWJlco
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.

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michaelpinto
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.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
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.

