After hearing this 10 times a day for the last 5 years I'm starting to get a bit tired. Do you have a rough time for when this great replacement is coming? 1 year? 2? 5? If it's longer than that can we shut up about it for a few years please.
My crude metaphor to explain to my family is gasoline has just been invented and we're all being lent Bentley's to get us addicted to driving everywhere. Eventually we won't be given free Bentley's, and someone is going to be holding the bag when the infinite money machine finally has a hiccup. The tech giants are hoping their gasoline is the one that we all crave when we're left depending on driving everywhere and the costs go soaring.
Why? Computers and anything computer related have historically been dropping in prices like crazy year after year (with only very occasional hiccups). What makes you think this will stop now?
On consumer side looking at a few past generations I question that. I would guess that we are nearing some sort of plateau there or already on it. There was inflation, but still not even considering RAM prices from last jump gains relative to cost were not that massive.
In the GP's analogy, the Bentley can be rented for $3/day, but if you want to purchase it outright, it will cost you $3,000,000.
Despite the high price, the Bentley factory is running 24/7 and still behind schedule due to orders placed by the rental-car company, who has nearly-infinite money.
the path is by charging just a bit less than the salary of the engineers they are replacing.
After hearing this 10 times a day for the last 5 years I'm starting to get a bit tired. Do you have a rough time for when this great replacement is coming? 1 year? 2? 5? If it's longer than that can we shut up about it for a few years please.
It’s happening already? Ask any new CS grads about how good the job market is.
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My crude metaphor to explain to my family is gasoline has just been invented and we're all being lent Bentley's to get us addicted to driving everywhere. Eventually we won't be given free Bentley's, and someone is going to be holding the bag when the infinite money machine finally has a hiccup. The tech giants are hoping their gasoline is the one that we all crave when we're left depending on driving everywhere and the costs go soaring.
Why? Computers and anything computer related have historically been dropping in prices like crazy year after year (with only very occasional hiccups). What makes you think this will stop now?
Commodity hardware and software will continue to drop in price.
Enterprise products with sufficient market share and "stickiness", will not.
For historical precedent, see the commercial practices of Oracle, Microsoft, Vmware, Salesforce, at the height of their power.
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It has stopped. Demand is now rising faster than supply in memory, storage and GPUs.
We see vendors reducing memory in new smart phones in 2026 vs 2025 for example.
At least for the moment falling consumer tech hardware prices are over.
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On consumer side looking at a few past generations I question that. I would guess that we are nearing some sort of plateau there or already on it. There was inflation, but still not even considering RAM prices from last jump gains relative to cost were not that massive.
Recent price trends for DRAM, SSDs, hard drives?
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Cars have also been dropping in price.
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In the GP's analogy, the Bentley can be rented for $3/day, but if you want to purchase it outright, it will cost you $3,000,000.
Despite the high price, the Bentley factory is running 24/7 and still behind schedule due to orders placed by the rental-car company, who has nearly-infinite money.
Please show me where any AI company is currently turning a profit with their current offering and price structure, then let's have that conversation.
I like this analogy.
I also think we're, as ICs, being given Bentleys meanwhile they're trying to invent Waymos to put us all out of work.
Humans are the cost center in their world model.
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how do I understand what is the sustainable pricing?