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Same thing for me! Got it with the education discount when it came out in 2024 and, although I've been pretty disappointed with macOS, it's crazy to see that th
by timpera 22d ago
Same thing for me! Got it with the education discount when it came out in 2024 and, although I've been pretty disappointed with macOS, it's crazy to see that the price increased by $300 in less than 2 years, with no sign of the price increases slowing down.
What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying.
- iamacyborg 22d ago> What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying. I’m sure some kind capitalist will be happy to rent them a thin client linked to a computer in the cloud.
- datakan 22d agoApple is already leasing phones/computers..........
- AISnakeOil 22d agoYeah the era of the personal computer is over. Companies will prioritize components for cloud computing and lease us thin clients...
- WesleyJohnson 22d agoMy take: this was done to pull consumers back into the cycle of upgrading to every new release. iPhones already do so much more than most people need. With the RAM price hikes, even though there was an influx of sales (according to a store rep) initially, I think Apple was expected a significant decline; people just choosing to stick with their current device to avoid paying the premium. Leasing not only allows Apple to keep "selling" people new devices, it will also mostly like accelerate the second-hand sales and resource recycling arms of the business. Consumers will be more willing to upgrade sooner and stay in perpetual payments vs having to buy out the device at lease end - and Apple gets back newer devices where the recycled tech is arguably more valuable.
- brightball 22d agoCapitalism will lead to: - Lots of options competing on quality, price, user experience, user needs - Every marketplace innovation that we talk about on this platform So somebody might offer exactly that and if it's a good option, people will use it. If it's not, they'll use an alternative. Government regulation will lead to: - Giant entrenched companies that are difficult to disrupt thanks to insider connections - Lack of competition, price increases, terrible customer service and pretty much everything that "anti-capitalists" today complain about in regards to capitalism.
- a2ff6eeb0 22d ago*gestures at prices*
- FeloniousHam 22d agoIn Soviet Russia, prices so low no inventory left!
- kwertyoowiyop 22d agoIn Soviet Russia, supply demands YOU!
- brightball 22d agogestures at supply and demand
- reaperducer 22d agoI’m sure some kind capitalist will be happy to rent them a thin client linked to a computer in the cloud. Maybe we'll see a return to the late 1990's, when companies would give you a free computer as long as you allowed it to constantly display an ad banner on the top of the screen.
- kwertyoowiyop 22d agoI think this was only promised once or twice and any company relying on it quickly went bust.
- reaperducer 22d agoThere were at least seven companies offering this. I personally knew two people who had them from two different companies, and I think they were also available at Best Buy and Circuit City. But yes, they all went out of business during when the dot-com bubble burst.
- type0 22d agoWhat do you think chromebooks are?
- sceptic123 22d agoMaybe they will have to use/repair/upgrade the ones they already own?
- moomin 22d agoProblem with that is so few of them are repairable these days. Laptops just kind of fall apart over time.
- imglorp 22d agoThinkpad and Framework are notable brands for easily replaced components. They should run forever if you just replace moving parts like fans and keyboards. Macs, as nice as the hardware is, are hostile to repair.
- jorvi 22d agoI don't really understand this dooming. All market forecasters, memory bulk purchasers and the memory producers themselves have stated multiple times, unequivocally that the shortage will get worse in 2027 and then as new fabs come online the shortage will taper off as 2028 progresses. We've been through.. 4? 5? memory boom-bust-boom cycles already. Nothing is pointing to this one being any different, aside it probably becoming the mother of all busts since AI isn't adding much productivity and as businesses realize this, they'll stop paying top dollar for access meaning AI vendors cancel all their reserved fab capacity. The fabs already exist at that point so it's less of a loss for the memory fabs to crank out memory chips and have the RAM OEMs sell them at bargain bin prices. No pseudo-cartel pricing possible either with CMXT becoming a major player. $50 for 32GB-64GB of DDR5 in 2029 here we come babyy
- wuschel 22d ago> AI isn't adding much productivity Would love to know where this comes from. I am not sure about that. Could you point to data/anecdata?
- throwaway85825 22d agohttps://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-layoffs-study/ https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/executives-ai-productivity-la... There's been a few studies. Most find productivity gain from 'AI' to be negligible.
- ThePhysicist 22d agoSeems hard to believe, I mean I'm not an AI absolutist but as a programmer it allows me to automate simple things like writing small patches or config changes in a matter of minutes where before I would have invested hours, so hard to believe that it won't at least bump productivity up by 20-60 % overall, it's also tremendously better at finding relevant content and curating it than me so that's another time saver unrelated to programming but relevant for any type of knowledge work. Friends in research and medecine and law also tell me that AI has drastically accelerated their rate of processing and ingesting any type of information and helped them to automate aspects of their jobs. So not sure but negligible isn't the word I would use here.
- qurren 22d ago> What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? If it persists for years people will have time to spin up more fabs and meet demand
- busymom0 22d agoI got an Apple refurbished m4 Mac mini with 32gb ram and 512gb ssd in September last year for $1300 Canadian. The m6 with same specs are $2000. Also m4 Mac mini seem to now be in stock on their refurbished store.
- type0 22d ago> What will happen once people are priced out of buying computers? I find this worrying. What happens is that people start buying Chinese mini PCs, some of those even have spyware preinstalled along with another malware that is Windows 11
- hedora 22d agoThis is a great route. Just yank or wipe the windows disk, install Linux, and it’s way more secure and performant than any preload windows would be. It probably runs games better too.
- pjmlp 22d agoThe last Gigabyte Brix I got my hands on, ended up into the recycling center, there was no way to have Linux distributions, whichever one I tried, to boot from UEFI, while the same distributions would boot from external drives over USB. After several months of wasted lifetime, it died and got the deserved burial at a recycling center.
- type0 22d agoProbably faulty nvme commectors, but Gigabyte Brix are notorious for their ability to brick themselves
- codebje 22d agoChinese mini PCs are also affected: they're shipping with less RAM, at higher prices, or both.