Comment by Animats
3 days ago
Why would anyone want to buy a new computer now unless the old one is worn out? There is no price/performance improvement. Nor will there be for the next five years or so. NVidia says to expect 10% price increases each year. DRAM prices have doubled, and Samsung says not to expect price cuts. Micron just exited the retail RAM business.
Microsoft is trying to escape this trap by pivoting to Windows as a subscription service. It will get worse, not better.
Yes. So Microsoft (which manufactures hardware itself and has close ties to other hardware manufacturers) needed to find... other ways to, er, motivate people to buy new hardware anyway. Which brings us back to the blog post we are commenting on.
Not sure Windows as a subscription service is the end goal though. But maybe we should all wish for M$ to do that, maybe that would be what's needed to finally bring about the Year of The Linux Desktop™.
I don't think selling more hardware is the primary motivation. The motivation is ensuring everyone has TPM 2.0 enabled on their device.
This allows Microsoft to protect parts of their software even from the user that owns the hardware it's running on. With TPM enabled you finally give up the last bit of control you had over the software running on your hardware.
Unbreakable DRM for software, such as for your $80 billion game business or your subscription office suite.
As a bonus, it prevents those pesky Windows API compatibility tools like Wine from working if the application is designed to expect signed and trusted Windows.
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Maybe instead Microsoft could allow Windows 11 to install and run on machines that are otherwise capable and just flash red screens at you all the time where otherwise ads would show up that constantly nag that "THIS COMPUTER IS FUCKING INSECURE!" or something. It would be equally as annoying but I'm sure running latest Windows 11 but with TPM 1.0 instead of TPM 2.0 will be more secure than running Windows 10 without bug fixes and security patches.
(But my understanding is there were other things like bumping minimum supported instruction sets that happened to mismatch a few CPUs that support the newer instruction sets but were shipped with chipsets using the older TPM)
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And clever people found out the way - https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-re...
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Hardware key storage is a low level security primitive. Both Android and iOS have mandated it for far longer. It's a low level security primitive that enables a lot of scenarios, not just DRM.
For example - it's not possible to protect SSH keys from malware that achieves root without hardware storage. Only hardware storage can offer the "Unplug It" guarantee - that unplugging a compromised machine ends the compromise.
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> With TPM enabled you finally give up the last bit of control you had over the software running on your hardware.
The overwhelming majority of users never had any kind of control over the software running on their hardware, because they don’t know (and don’t want to know) how the magical thinking machine works. These people will benefit from a secure subsystem that the OS can entrust with private key material. I absolutely see your point, but this will improve the overall security of most people.
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> motivate people to buy new hardware
Open source drivers, and a sense that Linux support will forever be top priority, would be a motivator for me. Most of my tech spend has been with Valve in the past few years. I'd love if there was another company I actually enjoy giving my money to.
May I suggest Framework (https://frame.work/linux).
>finally bring about the Year of The Linux Desktop™.
Do we actually want that?
If Linux ever reached mass adoption, big tech companies would inevitably find a way to ruin it
Governments around the world are finding ways of doing that well before big tech will get to it.
This big push for Age/ID verification & "trusted" operating systems is going to ruin what's left of free (as in freedom), general purpose computing. Governments are getting frothy at the mouth for every device to have remote attestation like google play protect/whatever iOS does.
> So Microsoft which manufactures hardware itself
The only computer lineup MS ever sold directly, to my knowledge, were the Surface things - an absolute niche market.
> So Microsoft (which manufactures hardware itself and has close ties to other hardware manufacturers)
You mean the Microsoft vacuum cleaner ? /s
They mouse is actually a good piece of hardware... as long as you don't make the mistake to plug it in Windows for it to install a driver.
> Why would anyone want to buy a new computer now unless the old one is worn out? There is no price/performance improvement.
Which is exactly why MS is pivoting to begging you to buy a new computer by harassing you with an apparently undismissable "upgrade" dialog.
They have to keep the upgrade treadmill running, and lacking "better performance" as the bait, they have resorted to outright harassment.
> There is no price/performance improvement.
Both performance and performance-per-watt continue to improve with each new generation of CPUs.
But that is squandered by piss-poor programming and stupid visual gimmicks.
I had to return to Windows as a daily work platform after a long time away (on Macs). I already knew that it had devolved into a grotesquely defective, regressive parade of UI blunders and deleted functionality... but its actual performance is TERRIBLE. I'm waiting for simple operations that I wouldn't have expected to wait for 20 years ago, even on bog-standard office desktop machines.
it really depends what you are using your computer for
a 128GB SoC m4 pro max can do pretty wild data science with close to a terabyte/second speed without the latency of typical offloading/back-and-forth
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You're not wrong. But, I recently did the mistake of upgrading my iPad to version 26 (the liquid glass version). I had a relatively smooth experience on my 6 year old tablet which now runs painfully slowly. Even scrolling through different parts of home-screen lags.
My point being, with time performance might go up. But instead of that making my device faster/long-lasting, developers use that extra performance to cram in more stuff, at the end of which I come out only slightly better if not worse (as is in my case)
I sympathize completely. My Apple TV 4K 2nd gen is a laggy, unresponsive piece of crap after the tvOS 26 update.
You're not wrong, but I was disappointed recently by how well an eleven-year-old Macbook Air still works. I installed NixOS on it, and it's still pretty usable even on modern websites.
An eleven year old computer is still useful, which is kind of cool, but also kind of bothers me in that apparently we haven't made enough progress in software to justify buying new hardware, apparently.
Progress in software is supposed to just needing more computing resources by your definition? As in, basically slowing everything down? Well, we got local AI for that I guess.
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Thank the web for that. We have lost more control of our devices and our privacy; the more we depend on the web and SaaS. We need to get back to writing native software, be it for Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS, or Windows. We need to make the local device the priority.
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My only complain is that nowadays laptops are usually poorly built, so unless one purchases an expensive guarantee, anything beyond the default guarantee is not guaranteed.
And the manufacturers are in a quest to remove as many keys as they can from the keyboard. Like you can hardly find any light laptop today with page up/down keys anymore. Why?.... Haven't these guys heard of keyboard shortcuts?
don't you like doing finger contortions to use all the modifier keys?
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It’s been a while since I shopped for one, but a Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 13 starts at about 1 kg and has a pretty full keyboard.
I suspect it's gradual cost-cutting. At the manufacturing scales they're operating with, even one keyswitch adds up.
Worse than that, there's no consistency in Fn+key shortcuts. Recently acquired an HP Ergonomic Keyboard as a replacement for a broken Sculpt, only to find out that it literally cannot send Ctrl+Break -- there's no key for it, no Fn+key shortcut for it and the remapping software doesn't simulate it properly.
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I dunno, I actually prefer Fn+Up/Dn. I just find it more logical, and it feels standard to me now. I press them surely hundreds of times a day and have no problem with it.
Nothing tops Apple's infantile refusal to put a (real) Delete key on their laptops. Instead, they have a Backspace key mislabeled "delete."
When the Eject key became obsolete, Apple had a perfect opportunity to fix this omission with essentially no effort. NOPE. Meanwhile, everybody else managed to have a proper Delete key on their laptops.
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Oh yeah, they sometimes put page up and down on up and down which infuriates me very much. There are other issues like less USB ports, but overall quality is poor comparing to MacBooks.
I’m actually happy about DRAM prices and hope more people share your mindset. This is the only thing that can force developers to start optimizing memory usage instead of externalizing the costs onto the poorest users.
I sincerely hope it works out this way instead of pricing out open sourced development. A couple open sourced projects changed their licensing to help mitigate the increased cost burden from skyrocketing hardware costs. It'll be a sad and potentially dangerous day if most people are permanently priced out.
the #1 computing platform is the phone, 99.99% of users experience no memory pressure on iPhones
Meanwhile Android rules the rest of the world. And current iOS is not light, ever.
I'm getting to that point where I may need to upgrade. Now I need to delay it more because AI is gonna make electronics even more expensive than the tarriffs in 2026.
2026 seems to just be becoming the "please don't break" era unless I can find some proper work this time. Car is on its last legs, a variety of housing appliances to repair, computer I use professionally. If nothing else, I upgraded my phone this year so that should get me through 2028 at least.
Well it also means it could be a good time to buy so you won't have to pay even more overprice for the same performance years down the line. I just bought one a good month ago. My old one was over 10 years old, not worn out, but not upgradeable to Win 11. I had been thinking waiting one more year before the security updates to Win10 are out... But I bought in when the first stories hit of the DDR5 price rises - at that time there had 'only' been a doubling, now the price is a further 3x of what I paid a good month ago. I thought it might be a good time to buy given the machine was so old and component prices were going up, and might for a long time. But yeah, performance improvements aren't what they used to. Part of the reason is that normal things were already felt so fast on the old one ;-) But I did get a much better gfx cards allowing some games that were unplayable before, and I think the CPU upgrade was needed for that as well, and then you might as well overhaul the machine. I also went from 16 to 64 GB, and the 16 GB had been a bit too little for some things.
More faster. I experienced huge performance boosts from upgrading CPU recently and GPU a bit back. (As always)
Compile times, game frame rates, computation time for simulations.
I had to upgrade to get DDR5, for one.
so my linux installation can be even faster
Any computer that can't run Windows 11 is almost a decade old. There has been plenty of improvement. Compare a laptop with a high end Intel i7 7920HK to even a lower end part like the Core Ultra 5 226V. Right now prices on pre-builts and laptops aren't totally reflecting the craziness at least.
A decade in computing used to mean revolutionary improvements:
- from the C64 to the Pentium
- from the Playstation 1 to the Xbox360
- from the Nokia 3310 to the iPhone 4.
Each of these in roughly a decade.
But 2015-2025 in terms of desktop PCs? Some decent (but not revolutionary) steps forward with GPUs, and much more affordable+speedy SSDs. But everything else has been pretty small and incremental.
And when enthusiasts upgrade, the old parts usually find new homes. My old 6th-gen i7 from a decade ago still has more than enough power for my Dad to use as a home PC for basic photo editing, web browsing, and spreadsheets. But Win10 end-of-life wants to turn that machine into e-waste.
I think that is normal across most technologies or fields. Progress is an S curve (or series of curves), and it's easy to be amazed when looking at the steep bit. Early on progress is slow due to not much investment and going down lots of dead ends, while later progress faces increased complexity and no low hanging fruit left.
The middle bit is where the disadvantages of the early phase has gone, but the disadvantages of late phase hasn't kicked in yet.
Cool, but my decade-old machine works perfectly well for my needs, as too I imagine a million other such machines.
I'm sure it works, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been improvements.
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But somehow, apps and websites load just as fast on my decade old personal laptop as on my brand new work laptop.
The antivirus / EDR / monitoring / inventory software that most corporate IT departments installs ages computers ten years. We constantly had problems with such services slamming the disk, holding files open, breaking software, running CPUs at 100%, etc.
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My daily desktop is mostly 2012 vintage. This hardware is still in use and works fine.
For what it's worth, that machine is being used while I upgrade my 2001 Computer Of Theseus once more. It's now getting it's third motherboard with CPU - this one salvaged from a 2018 or 2019 gaming machine. It's on its second case, and has seen more hard drive and memory upgrades than I can count - all of them piecemeal. Other than perhaps the motherboard screws and hard drive screws, I'm not sure if anything actually purchased in 2001 still survives in there. Maybe the power cable and pc speaker. And I don't remember ever replacing the rear case fan now that I'm looking at it.
It's triggers broom :-p
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Many budget laptops from 2020 don't support Windows 11. HP laptops with AMD A4-9125, HP notebooks with AMD A6-7310 APU, HP Envy x360 models with first-generation AMD Ryzen processors.
The software I use for hobbies is locked in to windows. A lot of extremely good software in the DIY world is locked to windows.
Coincidentally I can run it all on a 10 year old PC. I see no reason I need to upgrade. I’d happily pay a small yearly fee for patches.
But that’s not why Microsoft did all of this. Their goal is to Hoover all your data into their cloud and lock your PC down so you can’t do anything but use their stuff. Their profit numbers are insane despite losing marketshare. It’s working because the current CEO is a ruthless non-tech moron.
People want to hate on Microsoft. Rightfully so. Apple has done the same thing. Once you’re locked into the Apple ecosystem it’s hard to switch. They push iCloud and Siri on you at every turn. They just made a “one OS” choice so it doesn’t feel as bad.
Anyone who says Linux solves all the problems has not tried to make something like solidworks and masterCAM run on it. I love Linux, I use it on servers, but it has 3% marketshare for a reason.
I have sub 1year old enterprise CPUs in my home lab. Disabling TPM is the first thing I do on bring up. Assuming that's a hard requirement, how do I install w11?
2020 Apple MacBook pro has an i9-9880HK, more than enough, but lacks TPM2.0. The issue is this is just a waste of resources and money for a large number of people and the TPM2.0 requirement is silly.