this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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A few years ago, Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos revealed how he thinks of local PC hardware as antiquated, ready to be replaced by cloud options from companies like AWS and Azure.

Bucha Bull to me.

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago

as someone that married a reptilian looking person(her wife with mara-o-lago face), he sure says alot.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

...and how should I access this cloud compute? Stick my fingers into a network socket and wiggle them?

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So, what prediction did Bezos make back then, that seems particularly poignant right now? Bezos thinks that local PC hardware is antiquated, and that the future will revolve around cloud computing scenarios, where you rent your compute from companies like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

This isn't a new idea, and it certainly predates Bezos.

I'm older now, but throughout my life there has been a pendulum swing back and forth between local compute power vs remote compute power. The price of RAM going up follows the exact same path this has gone half a dozen times already in the last 50 years. Compute power gets cheap then it gets expensive, then it gets cheap again. Bezos's statements are just the most recent example. He's no prophet. This has just happened before, and it will revert again. Rinse repeat:

  • 1970s remote compute power: This couldn't really compute anything locally and required dialing into a mainframe over an analog telephone line to access the remote computing power.

  • 1980s local compute power: CPUs got fast and cheap! Now you could do all your processing right on your desk without need of a central computer/mainframe

  • 1990s remote compute power: Thin clients! These were underpowered desktop units that could access the compute power in a server such as Citrix Winframe/Metaframe or SunOS (for SunRay thin clients). Honorable mention for retail type units like Microsoft WebTV which was the same concept with different hardware/software.

  • 2000s local compute power: This was the widespread adoption of desktop PCs with 3D graphics cards as a standard along with high power CPUs.

  • 2010s remote compute power: VDI appears! This is things like VMware Horizon or Citirix Virtual Desktop along with the launch of AWS for the first time.

  • 2020s local compute power: Powerful CPUs and massively fast GPUs are now now standard and affordable.

  • 2030s remote compute power....in the cloud....probably

[–] evol@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In 2040s do we just move our brains into our own self hosted data centers?

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

For the 2040s, if the pattern holds, local compute power will be come dirt cheap again, and there will be very few reasons to pay someone else to host your compute power remotely. Maybe it will be supercomputers on everyone's wrist or something.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I don't buy computers from wax figures.

[–] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

this guy -- who also runs a film studio right now streaming a TV series about an adaptation of a video game of a postwar dystopia -- literally wanting to replace PCs with his own ROBCO terminals.

[–] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago
[–] FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I have a linuxbox with decent hardware that i can squeeze 4 years out of still, a steamdeck, and steamframes soon. I'll be good for quite a while, long enough to ride out the AI-slop bubble.

[–] Lexam@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Yes rent a computer from the cloud, while your Internet is capped at a terrabyte

[–] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 1 day ago

I think we've mostly done that already. Pretty much everything we use runs in "the cloud" and most things we use locally don't require any compute power. Pretty much all you need is a bit of RAM to run the browser.

Problem is if you want solid build quality and a nice keyboard and trackpad, etc. you can't get that without a PC with a $1000 processor shoehorned into it.

[–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

And the unprecedented destruction of privacy will be used to detect people who need help (read: about to become a murderer/commit suicide etc etc) and provide the required help to them, right?

padme.jpg

[–] weew@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Aren't people basically already doing this? There are lots of people who only have their phone and maybe a tablet, and for basically everything that might actually require computing power (i.e. photo editing) they end up using a web app or something.

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[–] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So, he wants us to pay to suck his tit?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

his roided up tit.

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[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

elon can't keep his mouth shut, but looks like they're all psychos...

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 1 points 1 day ago

Isn't this what Google did with chrome os and chromebooks?

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I already sort of do this with my gaming machine. It lives on a cloud host and I connect with a client.

It’s cheaper and more convenient than buying a new PC - especially since I’ve got three gamers in my house - and offloading graphics means I can get better battery life when playing on my laptop in my hammock.

However, if you’re more than a couple hundred miles from the data center or there’s network problems you won’t be having much fun. That’s the only reason I’d want an actual gaming machine, and even then I’d play via remote desktop from my hammock.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The latency from using steam link or moonlight in my house drives me insane. I don't know how anybody doesn't hate cloud gaming solutions

I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Even on WiFi with other peoples streaming it’s good enough to play games like Minecraft and Subnautica, but since I mainly play boring stuff like KSP or Civ latency isn’t much of an issue.

What I won’t do is tell you who my provider is because they’re already having problems at peak times and I don’t want to make it worse.

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