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They are at war against ownership (not raspberry pi org, but the general oligarchy). It’s the next step coming after “every software is a cloud service subscription”. We are heading towards the “you can’t own a computer, just rent one from the cloud”. In this day and age, computers are necessary, for everything, for education, public services, employment, entertainment. Once we have to pay taxes to the Lords in order to have access to our mean of substance, we are essentially in a new era of feudalism.
I’m not too worried about this. It sucks for the time being, and who knows how long they economy will suffer when the US fully collapses. The silver lining is that the actual cost of producing the hardware doesn’t match the inflated evaluation of it. The drivers of this won’t be able to sustain the hoarding. Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad. Anyone with a time machine would probably chose to give Peter and Sam a visit.
IT people have been saying that everything would be run in the cloud for the last 25 years. The truth is that processing is not profitable. They will not offload all processing into the cloud nor do they want to. The struggle is against right to repair/modify and ownership/control of software.
They can make “processing” profitable when their service is the only available option and they can charge whatever price they want for lackluster quality of service.
You said we’re heading to “you can’t own a computer, just rent one from the cloud”.
What I’m saying is that since at least the 1990s / early 2000s we have had dumb terminals that connect to the server that does all the processing and provides the video signal. People were saying this was what everyone would be using in the future. The fact that you are still saying this makes me really skeptical. When will this be?
The Data-Terminals and mainframe architecture of the time was a technical solution emerging from limitations of the time, bulky and pricey electronics. Also, computers at the time were used for special tasks.
Today, we can fit an ultra powerful computer in your pocket, no problem. You practically can’t survive without a smartphone (or computer), or yes you can survive, but you can’t be part of society without one.
Today’s trend to takeaway the computing power off the hands of normal citizens, when it’s so cheap and practical to have it, is not driving by technical limitations (or improvement of technology). It’s driven my the goal to extract every bit of money, ownership and finally freedom that we have have citizens.
Why would they give you the option to buy a top of the line 2000€ laptop and let you use it with Linux for everything you need until the heat-death of the universe when they can can extort you of 200€/month instead? Much more profitable. They can change the price whenever they want and you will have no choice but pay, because you can’t even find a single DDR3 RAM stick to buy anywhere! Why would they just let you use the heated sits in your car when they can extort you of a 60€/month subscription for it, on top of the 70k€ buying price ?
It’s not a technical trend, it’s an ideological one.
You really think “they” are going to make computers and Linux illegal so they can force you to pay $200 a month for their own platform? Hilarious that people agree with you
Pis have been overpriced for a long time now. They’re often just expensive or more expensive than a mini pc. And the mini pc’s are nearly as power efficient while being much more capable.
There’s also the clones. If the community as a whole would stop being so brand-loyal and started reaching out into the world of these tiny computers that’s often better, but at half the price, the Raspberry Pie would die an ugly death.
I still use raspberry pies. One for Klipper, one as a NAS and a few older models for testing. I’m satisfied with the Pi 4 2GB models. What alternatives are there that are at least as good?
I’m considering looking for old laptops with broken screens.
Suggested ebay search:
off lease thin client lot.
