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If it ever gets to home computing, it will get to data center computing far sooner. What does a world look like where data center computing is roughly 100x chea

If it ever gets to home computing, it will get to data center computing far sooner. What does a world look like where data center computing is roughly 100x cheaper than home computing?

whatshisface 6y ago
It will look like the 1970s.
cbozeman 6y ago
Dumb terminals everywhere. A huge upgrade of high-speed infrastructure across the US since everyone will need high throughput and low latency. Subscriptions will arise first, as people fucking love predictable monthly revenue - and by people I mean vulture capitalists, and to a lesser degree, risk-averse entrepreneurs (which is almost an oxymoron...), both of whom you can see I hold in low regard. Get ready for a "$39.99 mo. Office Productivity / Streaming / Web browsing" package", a "$59.99 PrO gAmEr package", and God knows what other kinds of disgusting segmentation. Someone, somewhere, will adopt a Ting-type model where you pay for your compute per cycle, or per trillion cycles or whatever, with a small connection fee per month. It'll be broken down into some kind of easy-to-understand gibberish bullshit for the normies. In short, it'll create another circle of Hell for everyone - at least initially.
- f1refly 6y ago
  I really appreciate your pessimistic worldview, keep it up!
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    I basically just base my worldview on the fact that everyone is ultimately self-serving and selfish. Hasn't failed me yet. :)
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  The great thing about capitalism is that it replaces bad services with good ones. Only exceptions are natural monopolies that the state fails to regulate, which datacenters are not.
valine 6y ago
Not much would change I imagine. For most tasks consumers care about low latency trumps raw compute power.
gpm 6y ago
Flexible dumb terminals everywhere. But we already have this with things like google stadia. Fast internet becomes more important. Tricks like vs code remote extensions to do realtime rendering locally but bulk compute (compiling in the case) on the server become more common. I don't think any of this results in radical changes from current technology.
tiborsaas 6y ago
You could play video games on server farms and stream the output to your TV. You just need a $15 controller instead of a $1500 gaming PC. :)
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  You're describing a service that already exists, Google Stadia.
  - tiborsaas 6y ago
    And GeForce Now, it was a joke ;)

If it ever gets to home computing, it will get to data center computing far sooner. What does a world look like where data center computing is roughly 100x cheaper than home computing?

whatshisface 6y ago

It will look like the 1970s.

cbozeman 6y ago

Dumb terminals everywhere. A huge upgrade of high-speed infrastructure across the US since everyone will need high throughput and low latency. Subscriptions will arise first, as people fucking love predictable monthly revenue - and by people I mean vulture capitalists, and to a lesser degree, risk-averse entrepreneurs (which is almost an oxymoron...), both of whom you can see I hold in low regard. Get ready for a "$39.99 mo. Office Productivity / Streaming / Web browsing" package", a "$59.99 PrO gAmEr package", and God knows what other kinds of disgusting segmentation. Someone, somewhere, will adopt a Ting-type model where you pay for your compute per cycle, or per trillion cycles or whatever, with a small connection fee per month. It'll be broken down into some kind of easy-to-understand gibberish bullshit for the normies. In short, it'll create another circle of Hell for everyone - at least initially.

f1refly 6y ago
I really appreciate your pessimistic worldview, keep it up!
- cbozeman 6y ago
  I basically just base my worldview on the fact that everyone is ultimately self-serving and selfish. Hasn't failed me yet. :)
colinmhayes 6y ago
The great thing about capitalism is that it replaces bad services with good ones. Only exceptions are natural monopolies that the state fails to regulate, which datacenters are not.

valine 6y ago

Not much would change I imagine. For most tasks consumers care about low latency trumps raw compute power.

gpm 6y ago

Flexible dumb terminals everywhere. But we already have this with things like google stadia. Fast internet becomes more important. Tricks like vs code remote extensions to do realtime rendering locally but bulk compute (compiling in the case) on the server become more common. I don't think any of this results in radical changes from current technology.

tiborsaas 6y ago

You could play video games on server farms and stream the output to your TV. You just need a $15 controller instead of a $1500 gaming PC. :)

colinmhayes 6y ago
You're describing a service that already exists, Google Stadia.
- tiborsaas 6y ago
  And GeForce Now, it was a joke ;)