The constant ratchet on users to provide ever-increasing amounts of computing resources is a textbook case of an ‘externality’ for the developers so we get the

The constant ratchet on users to provide ever-increasing amounts of computing resources is a textbook case of an ‘externality’ for the developers so we get the whole usual Tragedy Of The Commons situation yada yada yada. Applying this to the original question one gets that if performance ceases to increase users can no longer be expected to endlessly ramp up their specs so suddenly optimisation and slimming-down will be in vogue.