Hot take: If that means on-shored computing HW jobs back in the west, I'm all for it. I'm only upgrading my phone/PC every 6 years or so anyway, I can live with them being more expensive if they're made in the US/EU and provide local jobs.
Them being more expensive could also mean more focus on SW improvements and optimizations instead of throwing more HW resources at bloated and poorly written SW, more focus on longevity and repairability, and less e-waste for the environment, at the cost of corporate profits and the consoomerist attitude focused on hyping up this year's must-have "new-shiny" that's just 2% better than last year's "old-shiny". All I see is a win-win.
Fair points. Although if computers become more expensive the overall result is everyone becomes poorer.
Also, the energy transition towards decarbonization entails smart grids and intense use of computers for design, deployment and operation of a more diverse fleet of energy generating and storage assets.
People with the right skills might be better off, that's true.
>if computers become more expensive the overall result is everyone becomes poorer
How so? This might have been the case in the '90's and '00's when computers were still in adoption for home users, but nowadays, almost everyone already has a usable PC and a smartphone, even in developing nations in Africa.
Them being more expensive will mean only businesses and rich kids will get to play with the latest shiny, while Average Joes will have to stick to older tech and focus on sustainability and repairability instead of upgrading every 2-3 years.
I could be wrong, but I see this generating more HW repair jobs for technicians in every community like TV repair shops in the old days, and even more SW jobs needed to improve SW to run on older HW in order to target more consumers.
I don't see how this makes everyone poorer, other than execs at companies making a living selling a new HW widget with 2% improvement every year while abandoning SW support for last year's widget to force everyone to throw their old widget away, cough, Quallcomm, cough.
If things are more expensive, people can have less things and are thus worse off. This is circular, poor = less able to acquire = things are relatively more expensive.
Hot take: If that means on-shored computing HW jobs back in the west, I'm all for it. I'm only upgrading my phone/PC every 6 years or so anyway, I can live with them being more expensive if they're made in the US/EU and provide local jobs.
Them being more expensive could also mean more focus on SW improvements and optimizations instead of throwing more HW resources at bloated and poorly written SW, more focus on longevity and repairability, and less e-waste for the environment, at the cost of corporate profits and the consoomerist attitude focused on hyping up this year's must-have "new-shiny" that's just 2% better than last year's "old-shiny". All I see is a win-win.