I disagree. In both the consumer electronics world and even in the world of super nerds of IT, there is a very distinct, palpable loss of the joy that accompanies new technologies. And I’m not reaching back to the late 90’s either. The difference between just 10 years ago and today is nuts. And it’s felt not just by me but also younger people just entering the workforce.
It seems to be just that consumer tech doesn’t evolve like it used to. It was insane how things went from the late nineteenth century to modern era, but lots of signs of slowing down.
While computer tech is going, it’s now only doing so by scaling behind home electrical capacity. The high end server chips are just cranking the wattage because they can’t improve within a more reasonable power envelope anymore. A 2026 laptop that replaced a 2020 laptop that was broken wasn’t really significantly faster. In 2000, a new PC would have been more than 10 fold faster than a 6 year old PC.
Tech progresses, (e.g. just got a phone with a solid state battery that’s crazy better than battery behavior before), it’s just some of the biggest consumer electronics things are hitting physics and things we are used to advancing are just flattening out.
This is not about “technology itself.”
Just a guy reminiscing (with many words) about his long-gone youth, and probably facing a midlife crisis soon.
I disagree. In both the consumer electronics world and even in the world of super nerds of IT, there is a very distinct, palpable loss of the joy that accompanies new technologies. And I’m not reaching back to the late 90’s either. The difference between just 10 years ago and today is nuts. And it’s felt not just by me but also younger people just entering the workforce.
It seems to be just that consumer tech doesn’t evolve like it used to. It was insane how things went from the late nineteenth century to modern era, but lots of signs of slowing down.
While computer tech is going, it’s now only doing so by scaling behind home electrical capacity. The high end server chips are just cranking the wattage because they can’t improve within a more reasonable power envelope anymore. A 2026 laptop that replaced a 2020 laptop that was broken wasn’t really significantly faster. In 2000, a new PC would have been more than 10 fold faster than a 6 year old PC.
Tech progresses, (e.g. just got a phone with a solid state battery that’s crazy better than battery behavior before), it’s just some of the biggest consumer electronics things are hitting physics and things we are used to advancing are just flattening out.