5 ms·

high performance =/= high quality. There's a threshold that something is decently good enough, no point in maximising everything. The same can be said about mus

by env123 7y ago

high performance =/= high quality. There's a threshold that something is decently good enough, no point in maximising everything. The same can be said about music (320 kbps vs flac), operating systems (8gb vs 32gb), wifi (4g vs 5g). Like how greedy do you need to be, to not be content?

TeMPOraL 7y ago
There are other driving forces, though. A typical person may not need to shoot photos at more than 2 megapixels, given a half-decent sensor underneath. But they like their 4k TV programs, and to shoot those, there need to be high-end cameras available. Then some people might want to go into business of shooting stuff that ends up viewed on 4k displays, and suddenly you have a market for semi-pro equipment. Regular people for which good enough is good enough are the ones not in a market for a camera - they use the one in their phone. Similarly with RAM. 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack. I'd argue that web developers are the drivers for more powerful hardware now. And with 5G, more and more people like to watch Netflix in decent quality on the go, so now you have to push more data through the network. Also, out of all things to pick on about the economy, this is one of the least problematic. Personally, I think companies can and should shoot for triple digit megapixels on phones, terabyte of RAM and streaming 8k videos to contact lenses. These technologies are enablers - the more power and performance you make available, the more previously impossible use cases will show up.
- viraptor 7y ago
  > 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack That comparison is getting old these days. Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. That's a rounding error even under 8GB.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    It's a proxy for a wider point about website obesity crisis. In the past 2 years, I upgraded from 8GB to 12GB and now 32GB, in big part driven by whatever it is my browsers (both Chrome and Firefox) are doing while running Slack, Messenger, GMail and HN. (I honestly don't care much whether Slack has made performance improvements in the past few months, because I recently switched to the combination of not keeping it active in the browser, using the Android app, and using Ripcord client on desktop, which has sane system requirements.)
  - eitland 7y ago
    > Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. 400MB for the standalone application last I checked, and that was after the newest upgrades that should make it better IIRC. That is about 5% on a 8GB machine, and typically a much larger procent of the available RAM once you realize that a lot of those 8GBs are used by the OS and possibly other necessary processes.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Tell me if it stays at 400MB after a day of use. EDIT: Thanks for the data points. It's better than I expected.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        Mine is 118.8 + 125.6 + 182.5 MB = 426.9 MB after about a day and a half.
      - matwood 7y ago
        My Slack app on MacOS has been up for awhile. Current usage is 197+183+132 = 512MB. Much better than before, but still not small.
      - eitland 7y ago
        400MB is still a lot IMO. You obviously know this but for youngest people on HN: Back in the 90ies we could run Autocad on PCs with 512 MB. It was slow but it was possible.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  > And with 5G, more and more people like to watch Netflix in decent quality on the go, so now you have to push more data through the network. 4G is fine for video, it’s really fast! Even 3G was quite fast with HSDPA and all that. What I lack is cheap data on my phone otherwise I would watch Netflix on it right now.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > 4G is fine for video, it’s really fast! From what I understand, it's fine when it's just you doing it, but not when 20 other people standing next to you do it at the same time. 5G is supposed to improve on that. > What I lack is cheap data on my phone otherwise I would watch Netflix on it right now. That's, unfortunately, the problem with telco business shenanigans. Where I live, I managed to extend my contract from ~3GB to 22GB for something around $10-$15 monthly. I have plenty of LTE to burn on Netflix now.

by env123 7y ago

TeMPOraL 7y ago

There are other driving forces, though. A typical person may not need to shoot photos at more than 2 megapixels, given a half-decent sensor underneath. But they like their 4k TV programs, and to shoot those, there need to be high-end cameras available. Then some people might want to go into business of shooting stuff that ends up viewed on 4k displays, and suddenly you have a market for semi-pro equipment. Regular people for which good enough is good enough are the ones not in a market for a camera - they use the one in their phone. Similarly with RAM. 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack. I'd argue that web developers are the drivers for more powerful hardware now. And with 5G, more and more people like to watch Netflix in decent quality on the go, so now you have to push more data through the network. Also, out of all things to pick on about the economy, this is one of the least problematic. Personally, I think companies can and should shoot for triple digit megapixels on phones, terabyte of RAM and streaming 8k videos to contact lenses. These technologies are enablers - the more power and performance you make available, the more previously impossible use cases will show up.

viraptor 7y ago
> 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack That comparison is getting old these days. Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. That's a rounding error even under 8GB.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  It's a proxy for a wider point about website obesity crisis. In the past 2 years, I upgraded from 8GB to 12GB and now 32GB, in big part driven by whatever it is my browsers (both Chrome and Firefox) are doing while running Slack, Messenger, GMail and HN. (I honestly don't care much whether Slack has made performance improvements in the past few months, because I recently switched to the combination of not keeping it active in the browser, using the Android app, and using Ripcord client on desktop, which has sane system requirements.)
- eitland 7y ago
  > Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. 400MB for the standalone application last I checked, and that was after the newest upgrades that should make it better IIRC. That is about 5% on a 8GB machine, and typically a much larger procent of the available RAM once you realize that a lot of those 8GBs are used by the OS and possibly other necessary processes.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Tell me if it stays at 400MB after a day of use. EDIT: Thanks for the data points. It's better than I expected.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      Mine is 118.8 + 125.6 + 182.5 MB = 426.9 MB after about a day and a half.
    - matwood 7y ago
      My Slack app on MacOS has been up for awhile. Current usage is 197+183+132 = 512MB. Much better than before, but still not small.
    - eitland 7y ago
      400MB is still a lot IMO. You obviously know this but for youngest people on HN: Back in the 90ies we could run Autocad on PCs with 512 MB. It was slow but it was possible.
Synaesthesia 7y ago
> And with 5G, more and more people like to watch Netflix in decent quality on the go, so now you have to push more data through the network. 4G is fine for video, it’s really fast! Even 3G was quite fast with HSDPA and all that. What I lack is cheap data on my phone otherwise I would watch Netflix on it right now.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > 4G is fine for video, it’s really fast! From what I understand, it's fine when it's just you doing it, but not when 20 other people standing next to you do it at the same time. 5G is supposed to improve on that. > What I lack is cheap data on my phone otherwise I would watch Netflix on it right now. That's, unfortunately, the problem with telco business shenanigans. Where I live, I managed to extend my contract from ~3GB to 22GB for something around $10-$15 monthly. I have plenty of LTE to burn on Netflix now.