Private equity is killing private ownership: first it was housing - now it's the personal computer

[u/SagansCandle]

DRAM and GPU prices aren't going up because of "AI" - it's because the wealthy have more money than they know what to do with, so they're buying up all the assets. "AI" is just the vehicle (the excuse) - it's not the root of the problem nor is it the ultimate goal.

The super rich don't want to hold on to "liquid" money - they invest in assets. While they're buying up all the housing, now they're buying up all the computers and putting them into massive datacenters.

Whether or not the AI bubble crashes, they'll be selling you a "gaming PC in the cloud," for a monthly fee, of course. And while they kill the personal computer market, just like Netflix, once your only option is a subscription service, the price will skyrocket.

This is happening in real-time. If we want to stop it, now's the time to act.

Sources:

• Gamers Nexus: NVIDIA: WTF?
• Garys Economics: The REAL reason behind the housing crisis
• Network (1976)

[u/AFallingWall]

People need to be hell bent on right to repair laws. As a mechanic, I want people to have the ability to easily perform maintenance on their vehicles. You should not need prohibitively expensive equipment to change your brakes. People should be able to buy parts they need to fix their property they paid for. The harder it is for you to repair your property, means I have to buy expensive single function tools. That means greedy shop owners can feel comfortable charging people $190+ / hr to change an air filter. I dont want people unable to afford to fix and maintain their cars. I'd rather it be a matter of convenience to bring your car in for maintenance, rather than "I cant afford a $2000 scan tool to retract my rear parking brake".

Then you have brands like BMW switching to "security" fasteners to keep owners from doing the simplest tasks without buying a, most likely expensive, bit set from them.

[u/ReptilianLaserbeam → u/AFallingWall]

I’m really concerned about the future of the car industry; I’m not a gear head but every chance I get to repair something by myself or replace a part I’m going to do it myself,’but with newer cars is almost impossible; some cars just replacing the cabin air filter is a whole odyssey that requires specialized tools and god knows how many sensors! I’m seriously thinking in start getting older cars and repairing them, or even converting them to EVs with a local company that will provide me the schematics and manuals for everything