@Shrigglepuss I think most of us are really quite relieved that ten-year-old laptops are...fine, really. 4G of RAM is...fine, I guess. SSDs made laptops feel faster than any CPU improvements ever did.

Years ago I was excited to get another used laptop as a backup, or re-purpose a chromebook. these days I look around and think "I have too many laptops: I don't use all of them" and that's kind of amazing.

@Shrigglepuss Well, _some_ people need machines that fast. People who play high-end computer games, people who use video editing software, people who do professional graphics editing or 3D modelling, people working with AI. The kind of stuff for which you would use an incredibly expensive workstation 20-40 years ago, but which nowadays can be done with a machine for €800-3000.
However, we really need to make our high-end electronics, whether computer hardware or anything else, last a lot longer

@Shrigglepuss
I think I'm in the one field where it's still viable to build a 128 core behemoth with 4 GPUs as a workstation, and still want it under a desk for a single user.
Even for us it's getting rare and impractical.
I like to freak those folks out by A: being more senior and better at everything while also B: using a rockpro64.

@Shrigglepuss
This but also it's like some apps keep requiring more and more specs the more you have to give them and in the end you don't really do "more". Just the same things but less efficiently

@Shrigglepuss I just kept slowing down new computer purchases.

The last one I bought was mostly because the previous one had lots of little issues from wear.

I was let down by how little improvement I saw. Yes, everything works now, but the experience is about the same as with the old one.

Unless something radically changes, I think I'll stick to "only if it's broken" for the rest of my life.

@Shrigglepuss We do need loading that fast, but we had it 25 years ago, and lost it because the software keeps getting worse thanks to new ideologies and frameworks aimed at making the people who make software fungible and disempowered rather than a skilled craft we only need a small number of people who actually care to be doing.

@Shrigglepuss

Well, DevOps, Serverless and Kubernetes on the server side will ensure that computers are never fast enough. ;-)

If you have been around long enough; GEM ran desktop publishing (Ventura?) on like a 2MB 386 with disk space less than the size of a regular web page today.

It is mind-blowing when thinking about it, and lived it.

@Shrigglepuss the last few notebooks I've bought all come from e-recyclers. great thinkpads, slapped linux on them, bam total daily drivers

1 out of the last 12-15 machines, in as many years, ive bought or built came from erecyclers. the only new one i got was for my kid's gaming rig, and even that runs linux.

i have two machines from 07, 08 which still run just fine with linux.

it can be done. just not by apple or microsoft.

used machines last decades. i have proof