Comment by MisterTea
4 hours ago
Today I opened newegg for the hell of it and figured I'd look at the cost of a 2 TB NVMe ... Fuck man. This is seriously depressing.
BUT! I feel that lost hope could/will turn into a new forms of "min-maxing" or whatever where we will see people focusing on small, efficient software to make the most of what we have to weather the drought. We got spoiled with cheap hardware. Time to make the most of all that cheap hardware we have.
Though of course, replacing this hardware as it breaks down will be expensive. Perhaps we could go back to 1/2/4 GB RAM sticks and 256/512 GB Disks. Then run minimal Linux installs, minimal GUIs, minimal services, minimal software.
To amend this: Reading the 8088 domination article and the little $8 RISC-V Linux board I think we have plenty of opportunity. Maybe we learn to shed our inefficient BIG computers for small, low power, purposeful, yet general computers. I play with Plan 9 a lot and its portability, small footprint, low resource, and distributed design has showed me we can do a lot with a little as long as we stay disciplined to keep things simple and to the point.
I have an external USB-C 4 TB portable SSD called the Samsung T7 Shield 4TB Black.
I bought it at the middle/end of 2024, and I paid 3790 NOK (~357 USD at the time).
The lowest price online in my country for the same product new online today is 10233 NOK (~1085 USD)!
270% of what it was before, it’s absolutely bonkers.
I was even considering putting it up for sale a few weeks ago. But of course what I would be able to get for it would be no where near $1000 when selling second hand. Instead I might if I am lucky get slightly more than I originally paid which would be nice and all except that if I then regret selling it it’s still expensive to replace, or I have to also buy it second hand from someone else that may have worn theirs out considerably more compared to what I have done to the one I currently have. Mine is very well taken care of since the start, and although it’s nearing capacity now I haven’t written and deleted data over and over on it. So there has been very little wear on the flash.
"... we will see people focusing on small, efficient software to make the most of what we have..."
Been doing that for myself for the past 15 years
Advances in hardware are only impressive and useful for me when I avoid the so-called "tech" company "engineer" BS
The reason I stop using old computers is never due to software. It's always outdated proprietary cables, failing power adapters, screens, hinges, and so on
Sometimes "minimalism" is simply for _speed, resource usage and reliability_ (that's what I get from small software, anyway) in contrast with prevailing marketed garbage that is bloated and sluggish by commparison
Other times, claims of "minimalism" might be trying to capitalise on some silly trend
Personally I like what the computers I own can do for me and learning to make them do more. I have a brain, I don't do much "guessing" and I don't really need "inference" on a daily basis, certainly not for such a high cost to the environment
I have all the "convenience" I can handle