How to survive the "personal computing as a service" wave that is coming?

[FarleyCZ]

Hi everyone.

Here's what's keeping me awake at night lately. We all know the AI goldrush is just a huge corporate greed bubble waiting to burst in a spectacular manner. We don't have to discuss this at all. But what I'm worried is what comes next. Here me out:

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and pretty much everyone with money are buying out all the manufacturing capacity for computer chips. (...be it the latest RAM shortage, GPUs, CPUs... Everyone knows that computer prices will skyrocket this year.) I don't think these corporations are so dumb to buy all that hardware without a plan B in case of the bubble bursting. But the thought of what that plan B might be worries me greatly.

When crypto mining frenzy was cooling down, you had secondhand market flooded with perfectly usable GPUs anyone could buy and use. But you won't stick ECC DDR5 stick of RAM into a regular DDR5 slot. You can't plop a server XEON processor into an i9 ready motherboard. You won't play any games on nVidia APU/NPU server cards. If the AI bubble bursts, selling the hardware on the market most probably is not an option. Yet they still boldly buy it all. This makes me woried, that the actual plan B might be to rent it to the people instead. For a nice fat subscription fee.

Now ... I obviously hate that vision. And as a life long Windows user this worries me even more, as Microsoft has all the eggs in the (very fragile) AI basket. They also have all the ways to cripple your on-premise Windows installation so much you'll gladly accept their cloud offerings. (And don't worry, if that turns out to be profitable, Apple reinvents it with a shiny iName half a decade later.)

My problem is: We can't run a low latency ASIO/CoreAudio driver from the cloud. It just isn't an option. As audio people we need every millisecond we can get. (...and I don't expect 4ms pings to a datacenter with 0% packet loss anytime soon.)

What is your personal approach to the (imo) inevitable cloud computing push?

• ...do you plan to conserve your system on a last perpetualy owned version?

• ...do you plan to switch to Linux?

• ...do you plan to give in and live with latencies and AI b*llcrap under every other button?

On the Linux side. Now adressing especially devs here. Do you see any kind of trend to compile plugins to Linux compatible plugin formats? I do have some friends that are "almost succesful" at running Win emulations of VSTs on Linux, but it's really a hit or miss. Serum 2 has GUI trouble there for example. That's a showstopper for me.

What are your long term plans concerning this trend?

[bermudagold]

"wave that is coming"?...been here dude...where u been? lol...first it was "thin client", then it was "web services", then "SOA" service oriented architecture, then it was "SaaS" software as a service, then it was "cloud"...same concept rebranded every 3-5 yrs to match funding cycles and take advantage of clueless middle management...this has been the goal for decades in software for a slew of reasons, mainly higher revenue and more stable cash flows to survive the downside of the business cycle

[FarleyCZ]

Yup. Agreed. But this time it feels bigger. It feels like gamers and households lost their purchasing power compared to all the players in the AI bubble race. ...and that this detail dictates what kind of hardware is actually being manufactured.

Just to illustrate:
https://www.windowscentral.com/artifici ... ud-version

[uOpt]

Already on Linux for PCs (most music on Mac).

Looks like I have to skip DDR5 platforms. Didn't buy enough DDR5 in time and have plenty of DDR4 both unbuffered and registered.

[bermudagold]

Yup. Agreed. But this time it feels bigger. It feels like gamers and households lost their purchasing power compared to all the players in the AI bubble race. ...and that this detail dictates what kind of hardware is actually being manufactured.

Just to illustrate:
https://www.windowscentral.com/artifici ... ud-version

yep...just like renting software, it coincided with the sell job that having all your files in the cloud was better for consumers than setting up ur own local SAN...but similarly people didn't realize that majority of benefits were for corps as it was really mostly just about being able to cross correlate people's personal data for surveillance and training of AI

just like the crypto crowd wanting cold wallets instead of trusting exchanges,...there will always be people who want to own and control their software, data, and computing power...i guess ur question is based on relative market dynamics,...what will be left available for those people in the future marketplace...interesting article

[ksandvik]

Well, if this happens Apple will have a field day selling desktops and laptops.

[eLawnMust]

Do not use a 'cloud', your information is then THEIR information & encryption won't help... 'Cloud' is a strange name for such a 'service', could've been named many other monikers but it's called that because what do clouds eventually do? They GO AWAY!... Yup, when there's enough information & data on there surely some cyber false flag will appear & all your shit is then gone "OOps. Sorry but we are not responsible!"

Piss on AI, the cloud, even the internet which is super crap compared to 20 years ago just be completely offline... Save all your info by burning to disc which is EMF proof...

Going to Linux is poor choice... One of the largest 'honorary' contributors is Gill Bates & has been for many years... When enough have jumped ship to it you will see a change...

Like everything else when enough morons are using AI & 'can't live without it' then you'll have to watch ads before using or directly pay for the service. Enough!... Go touch ass!... I mean grass!

[whyterabbyt]

could've been named many other monikers but it's called that because what do clouds eventually do?

Utter bullshit, as usual.

[Gamma-UT]

I don't think these corporations are so dumb to buy all that hardware without a plan B in case of the bubble bursting. But the thought of what that plan B might be worries me greatly.

There is no Plan B. They are all-in on it not being a bubble.

A lot of the hardware will go into landfill because the cost of electricity to power it will be too high to justify renting a lot of the processing power. There will be some inventory of stuff like DDR5 that makes it into consumer market, but that will be like every previous memory-price crash.

And as others have pointed out, if you don't want a subscription to Windows or whatever, Linux is an option.

[FarleyCZ]

There will be some inventory of stuff like DDR5 that makes it into consumer market...

Yeah. But server grade ECC DDR5, which you can't plop into a regular PC. The slots are physically different. (Learned that the hard way.) You would have to de-solder the chip and find chipless regular DDR5 modules to re-solder them to. Good luck. Same with CPUs. Xeons have different sockets AFAIK. The only way would be for gamers and producers to literally buy the whole rack units to play on.

And as others have pointed out, if you don't want a subscription to Windows or whatever, Linux is an option.

For a normal folk - yes. But I doubt I'll be able to run 400 VST plugins on a Linux distro.

[Gamma-UT]

There will be some inventory of stuff like DDR5 that makes it into consumer market...

Yeah. But server grade ECC DDR5, which you can't plop into a regular PC. The slots are physically different. (Learned that the hard way.) You would have to de-solder the chip and find chipless regular DDR5 modules to re-solder them to. Good luck. Same with CPUs. Xeons have different sockets AFAIK. The only way would be for gamers and producers to literally buy the whole rack units to play on.

I too can ID any number of components that aren't fungible. They aren't going to rent those to you either, which was the point you neatly clipped off for some reason unless you think the landfill is just going to be racks.

And as others have pointed out, if you don't want a subscription to Windows or whatever, Linux is an option.

For a normal folk - yes. But I doubt I'll be able to run 400 VST plugins on a Linux distro.

Now? Yeah, probably. If enough people jump ship, life finds a way. If there wasn't a big enough market for MacOS plugins, most of them would just run on Windows. Which is what this is about.

People quickly tire of watching their bank balance drain away from subscription overload. Maybe you can't run Serum2. Maybe Steve decides "y'know a port is looking a better idea now".

[whyterabbyt]

Not sure I understand the argument 'they're buying server components which wont be reusable in home computers' because that has never not been the case. The potential market for second-hand server components has always been other servers, and always will be.

[FarleyCZ]

Not sure I understand the argument 'they're buying server components which wont be reusable in home computers' because that has never not been the case. The potential market for second-hand server components has always been other servers, and always will be.

The argument is: You'll need a server at home to benefit from this.

Maybe you can't run Serum2. Maybe Steve decides "y'know a port is looking a better idea now".

I might actually bring this up on Steve's Discord. I'd love to hear his opinion on this in particular.

[whyterabbyt]

Not sure I understand the argument 'they're buying server components which wont be reusable in home computers' because that has never not been the case. The potential market for second-hand server components has always been other servers, and always will be.

The argument is: You'll need a server at home to benefit from this.

which was always the requirement for 'benefitting' from server hardware.

so I still dont understand what the argument is (which specifically reads as though its predicated on that situation being new to the current circumstances)

If the argument is 'nothing has changed, we still cant use server parts in our home PCs' then yes thats true.

[FarleyCZ]

Not sure I understand the argument 'they're buying server components which wont be reusable in home computers' because that has never not been the case. The potential market for second-hand server components has always been other servers, and always will be.

The argument is: You'll need a server at home to benefit from this.

which was always the requirement for 'benefitting' from server hardware.

so I still dont understand what the argument is (which specifically reads as though its predicated on that situation being new to the current circumstances)

If the argument is 'nothing has changed, we still cant use server parts in our home PCs' then yes thats true.

Well the problem is in the supply. There's only a finite amount of fabs. It's too volatile for TSMC to build new plants. Until the bubble bursts, big tech will buy all the chips it can get it's hands on, so they can build more data centers. Households always shared the same chip pool with datacenters, but so far the supply was enough to satisfy both demands. Now, with the bubble growing, big tech always outbids households.

Tha argument/question is: What will we put into our comuputers, when all the chips on the planet end up in datacenters? Apple has an advatage here, as they can place huuuge bulk offers to TSMC. But that doesn't mean that nVidia, most valuable company on the planet right now, wouldn't like to outpay Apple as well...

And when they start to rent the compute back to us instead of selling it, what shall musicians do?