2 ms·

This scares me, because of the likely conclusion: people who DO need a desktop will end up paying through the nose. If no-one's buying PCs any more, the price

This scares me, because of the likely conclusion: people who DO need a desktop will end up paying through the nose. If no-one's buying PCs any more, the price will go up. As the price goes up, all the tasks that you'd do on a PC become more inaccessible. I'm not looking forward to a world where if you want to edit professional video, do 3D animation or do games development, you need to shell out $10k or more for a machine first.

sukuriant 14y ago
So you don't want to go into a world of proprietary console development? I hear those development machines are quite expensive.
- thenomad 14y ago
  Well, given I'm a filmmaker, no, not really :) My understanding is that there are some routes that are less expensive to get to consoles these days, but yes - the console dev situation of 5 years or so ago is pretty close to what I'm worried about.
gnaffle 14y ago
While that may be true for specialty hardware like 3D graphics cards, don't forget that the server market will likely be alive and well, leading to faster and cheaper servers. So while you might not be able to get a silent, high end desktop computer, I think you'll still be able to buy or rent the computer power you need at a reasonable price.
- thenomad 14y ago
  That's a fair point - and thanks for bringing the optimism! Given gaming, I can't see 3D chips getting more expensive either. Boards may, a bit, but provided a general-purpose PC doesn't become an extreme luxury item, I think we'll be OK.
hkarthik 14y ago
I've had the exact same concern regarding pricing of equipment for workstations/laptops. It's not hard to imagine a world where the workstation that costs you $2000 today will cost closer to $4000 simply because the demand is 20% of what it is today, and the economies of scale disappear for even the large manufacturers like Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc. My hope is that the next great frontier for tablet commuting will be content creation (code, video, etc) and we'll start to see that make some serious in-roads before the prices go up substantially.

sukuriant 14y ago

So you don't want to go into a world of proprietary console development? I hear those development machines are quite expensive.

thenomad 14y ago
Well, given I'm a filmmaker, no, not really :) My understanding is that there are some routes that are less expensive to get to consoles these days, but yes - the console dev situation of 5 years or so ago is pretty close to what I'm worried about.

gnaffle 14y ago

While that may be true for specialty hardware like 3D graphics cards, don't forget that the server market will likely be alive and well, leading to faster and cheaper servers. So while you might not be able to get a silent, high end desktop computer, I think you'll still be able to buy or rent the computer power you need at a reasonable price.

thenomad 14y ago
That's a fair point - and thanks for bringing the optimism! Given gaming, I can't see 3D chips getting more expensive either. Boards may, a bit, but provided a general-purpose PC doesn't become an extreme luxury item, I think we'll be OK.

hkarthik 14y ago

I've had the exact same concern regarding pricing of equipment for workstations/laptops. It's not hard to imagine a world where the workstation that costs you $2000 today will cost closer to $4000 simply because the demand is 20% of what it is today, and the economies of scale disappear for even the large manufacturers like Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc. My hope is that the next great frontier for tablet commuting will be content creation (code, video, etc) and we'll start to see that make some serious in-roads before the prices go up substantially.