Comment by c22
2 hours ago
Don't think of it as a step back, it's just a point in a familiar cycle:
New application of computing requires a lot of compute -> compute centralizes -> compute improves, smaller, faster, cheaper -> compute decentralizes -> new application of compute is found -> (return to beginning of cycle)
Can you think of examples of this cycle? I know this is roughly what happened with mainframes, but I struggle to think of other times it went like that.
Maybe arcade games?