I don't buy the argument. That's like saying, I have a 1TB hard disk. Now I have less files, so I can save money by not upgrading. Sure, you might not be for

I don't buy the argument. That's like saying, I have a 1TB hard disk. Now I have less files, so I can save money by not upgrading. Sure, you might not be forced to upgrade due to space constraints. But harddisks are mechanical devices - they degrade over time (just like trains, roads, plumbing etc.). If you don't replace your harddisks for 10 years, because you somehow manage to delete a bunch of files, and not replace them ....well, good luck trying to access your data. Also, technology is constantly evolving - and trite as it may sound, if you're not going forwards, you're going backwards. Have you tried using, oh, say, a Quantum fireball drive lately, to run a modern operating system or modern applications? I mean, apart from the incompatibility issues, even if you got it running, and even if you managed to fit it on there, it just wouldn't be able to keep up. So no, having a falling population doesn't mean you can just sit and let your infrastructure run into the ground.