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The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

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Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#41

Post by lotsofpulp »

brainless wrote: post #26
vladvasiliu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear people saying this a lot, and I admit I sometimes think it myself. But I'm not sure how true it is, as opposed to just a perception. > Not even to the level that I, a curious teenager, had experienced in those years I think therein lies the rub. Teenagers curious about computers aren't very common. And even back then (early 2000s), my experience in Europe was the same [0]. Most of the people in my school didn'…

You are right overall but the smartphone does not inspire tinkering at any level. It feels closer to the TV to me than the computer. Computers used to be boxes which, even non-developers, would open up and upgrade RAM, HDD, etc. That encouraged tinkering to a high degree. I remember having lengthy talks about what components to use to build a PC with gamers or videgraphers. The more computers become a closed box whic…

> The industry is simply not giving people a box to open.

The industry is, it’s people who don’t want it.

The sealed boxes are some combination of more resistant to damage and longer lasting and smaller fo factor that a modular box can’t be, the sealed software is less prone to malware and blue screens of death.

The cloud makes things work like an appliance, rather than having to worry about dying drives and backups and figuring out port forwarding on your router. It also helps companies extract maximum rents on their product, but the point is it came with some benefits that consumers do value.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#42

Post by brucehoult »

nathias wrote: post #11

it looks like we're going back to terminals (renting cloud resources), where owning your own computer will be an increasingly niche hobby

That was a decade or more ago. Now we're getting heavier and heavier JavaScript and WebASM running locally on our "dumb terminals" -- and with them using local permanent storage too.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#43

Post by shaan7 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #38
shaan7 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But phones? I just can't be bothered to care about them. Can I make calls and check some maps? It's great! I understand where you are coming from, and it makes 100% sense if you own a PC/laptop as well. But guess what? In a lot of places the majority of population (including younger people) do NOT have them. Their first and only experience of computers is a mobile phone. Even though "teenagers who care about comput…

I do get your point, but I don't agree it supports the thesis that there's a "regression" happening. Broadly, I could see two situations in which people only get a phone and have no computer: either "poor" countries, where they can't afford a computer and will get a phone that's better than nothing, and very affluent ones where they'll just get a phone or tablet and not care. Although I'm not sure that this second ca…

[for simplicity, I'm using the term "computer" as a desktop/laptop computer]

> Phones never were open

They certainly were more open than today. It was much easier to fiddle around with the software with smartphones that Nokia used to have, for example. Both iOS and Android were easier in that respect, too. So there's clearly been a regression there. However, if you meant "phones were never as open as PCs", ah yes then I agree.

> As such, for me, this is more of a lost opportunity to progress rather than a regression.

I would agree with the spirit of that, but the problem is that a lot of computers are actually being "dumbed down" so that they are more similar to phones simply because a larger population is used to them. For example most young people might not find it weird if some day MS or Apple make it painfully difficult to install PC/Mac apps from outside their stores.

You're right we are not there yet (yay?), but we seem to be moving towards that.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#44

Post by dschuetz »

spoonjim wrote: post #18
dschuetz wrote: post #15

It's declining perhaps, yes, but it's not there yet. Because modern workloads shifted mostly towards gaming, crypto-mining and web browsers doesn't mean that general-purpose computers declined. It only means they haven't developed very fast, but that is thanks to Intel and Microsoft. In my opinion, the OS needs to go all virtual+distributed for general-purpose to survive. Or else all hardware will become web browser…

What I find is that people of my generation have some basic idea of at least some computer jargon because of what we had to learn just to get our PCs working in the 80s and 90s. What in fuck's name is a parity bit? We learned because we wanted to get our modems configured to play Doom together when our moms weren't on the phone. I'm not talking about people who went into computers, I'm just talking about the people w…

The people who grew up knowing what a parity bit was, are in the IT consulting business now, myself included. I think that's how things naturally change. IT and computer hardware has become that much complex and popular at the same rate, you now need people and abstraction for that. It doesn't have to be a bad thing though.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#45

Post by watwut »

brainless wrote: post #6

This is what I personally feel is just missing these days. I was never part of the leading edge of hobby computing. I was very far off, geographically, growing up a teenager in India. But back then, 1998 - 2006 ish, I feel the Internet was a lot more about experiments. I would read up on some software or hardware group all the time. LUGs were way popular. I used to be on chat rooms from MIT or other unis every other…

You cant compare back-then-yourself to general population now and assume the comparison is good comparison between generations.

Plenty of your peers were not on those chat rooms. They did not interacted with tech like you or even did not interacted with tech at all. They had different hobbies and interests, different habits then you.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#47

Post by watwut »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #35
vladvasiliu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear people saying this a lot, and I admit I sometimes think it myself. But I'm not sure how true it is, as opposed to just a perception. > Not even to the level that I, a curious teenager, had experienced in those years I think therein lies the rub. Teenagers curious about computers aren't very common. And even back then (early 2000s), my experience in Europe was the same [0]. Most of the people in my school didn'…

I don't think it's curiosity about computers - it's more general curiosity about how certain kinds of systems work. It isn't even about appliances and mass consumption. That's a relevant view, but not a very revealing one. Computers are an idealised example of an organised system which is assembled/operated by solving puzzles. Some people enjoy solving those kinds of puzzles. Most people don't. The first kind of pers…

> Computers are an idealised example of an organised system which is assembled/operated by solving puzzles. Some people enjoy solving those kinds of puzzles. Most people don't. The first kind of person doesn't really understand the second kind of person - and vice versa.

Plenty of puzzle lovers don't care about computers at all. Plenty of good programmers and tinkerers don't care about puzzles of different kind.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#48

Post by koonsolo »

brainless wrote: post #6

This is what I personally feel is just missing these days. I was never part of the leading edge of hobby computing. I was very far off, geographically, growing up a teenager in India. But back then, 1998 - 2006 ish, I feel the Internet was a lot more about experiments. I would read up on some software or hardware group all the time. LUGs were way popular. I used to be on chat rooms from MIT or other unis every other…

Why the negative outlook? The world now is way more awesome for hackers than it was back then!

1. You can find any information you want, in an instant.

2. Hardware is very cheap, computers can be tiny, you can order components from anywhere

3. Robotics and electronics are way cooler now, with drones etc.

4. Software development is way more productive with all the libraries and tools we have right now.

5. When I was a kid, games were made by 1 or a few people. It quickly evolved into big studios. But nowadays, a solo or tiny team can release super successful games.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#49

Post by exporectomy »

brainless wrote: post #29
blowfish721 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective I think it might feel that way because back then it was mostly tech curious people who used the internet. Now it’s mainstream and everyone is connected which means most of the content is produced for massconsumation. Back when I got my first computer and got online, in around 1996 I think, the computers were still quite expensive and I would have killes to have access to the information and tinker…

I clearly remember my friends' parents being scared of me since I used to open up PCs and see what components were in them. I have been using laptops that can not be easily opened/upgraded for the last 4-5 years. Devices are being made mainly for people to consume media and that's it. I think computers of the earlier era and now are not at all comparable. The devices now are not really "computers" as they used to be.…

I think you're comparing the wrong things. When I was a kid, I tinkered with clocks and watches. I thought digital ones were opaque boxes and remember calling them boring. The mechanical clocks were much more fun and reconfigurable.

Does that mean we've sadly come to the end of the era of hobbyist friendly alarm clocks? Maybe, but so what? We then got computers instead. Now we have Raspberry Pi's for kids who see cellphones as boring black boxes. There's always something and it's fine if it's not the same thing it used to be. The same thing happened with cameras - people used to build their own cameras out of bits of wood and develop their own pictures from glass plates. but cheap film cameras eliminated that hobby from the mainstream. It's fine. Technology moves on. Now we have 3D printers that enable kids to make things they never could have before without access to an expensive milling machine.

Re: The decline of computers as a general-purpose technology

#50

Post by Nextgrid »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #14
brainless wrote: post #6

This is what I personally feel is just missing these days. I was never part of the leading edge of hobby computing. I was very far off, geographically, growing up a teenager in India. But back then, 1998 - 2006 ish, I feel the Internet was a lot more about experiments. I would read up on some software or hardware group all the time. LUGs were way popular. I used to be on chat rooms from MIT or other unis every other…

I hear people saying this a lot, and I admit I sometimes think it myself. But I'm not sure how true it is, as opposed to just a perception. > Not even to the level that I, a curious teenager, had experienced in those years I think therein lies the rub. Teenagers curious about computers aren't very common. And even back then (early 2000s), my experience in Europe was the same [0]. Most of the people in my school didn'…

I don't think the problem is curiosity around computers. Back in the day, computers were just a novelty and weren't yet essential to most jobs. It's fine if people didn't care then.

Nowadays however most white-collar jobs and daily life tasks involve computers at some point, and knowing how to use & program them would make these tasks more efficient - almost too efficient, to the point where it goes against corporate interests (turns out society normalized and encourages business models that bank on artificially created or maintained inefficiency) which is partly why general-purpose computing is on the decline now.

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