Shrinkflation Is Quietly Making All Gadgets Worse

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gizmodo.com/shrinkflation-is-quietly-making-all…

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Thank you for this wonderful meme, we shall share it to the rest of the world (a few discord meme channels)

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Something’s got to give at some point here. Everything from computers to phones to cash registers to traffic signals need these components and are costing more due to the shortages, despite production remaining high.

The world is going to have to decide if it is worth putting the entire modern world on a pricing hold to funnel all the memory into speculative markets.

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The voting is done with money, and the money is in a few hands which right now say “yes, yes it is”. I don’t think this will last forever, though. Their free cash flow won’t allow it, and they are notoriously fickle.

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It’s fine, the free market has always worked in our best interest.

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You remind me of this dog I knew. 😂

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What about the literally everything else I mentioned though? Those semiconductors are in everything, not just personal computers and gaming consoles.

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I. Am. Not. Talking. About. Personal. Computers.

I am talking about electronic NON-COMPUTER devices that use computer CHIPS.

They are not going to recycle an old graphics card to build a weather radar, and it doesn’t matter how fast computers were 10 years ago when building a new elevator.

I’m saying that every modern everything needs those chips and they’re using them only for one industry, and every other industry, including but not limited to computers, is heavily impacted by that.

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This is a text medium, so yelling is literally impossible, though I did add extra punctuation to draw attention to the same point I have been making in every post in this thread that does not seem to have been heard despite being stated very plainly. Sorry if that reads as yelling, but it is meant as emphasis on a repeatedly missed point.

On the subject of the article’s contents, I am aware of its subject matter, and was making a directly adjacent point to the problem they are detailing about PCs, as one often does when engaging in conversation, rather than, say, writing an article summary. This is why I was careful to specify that I was talking about the broader electronics industry and their adjacent industries, which today encompasses many other products and supply chains beyond the obvious, because semiconductors and, yes, things made of semiconductors like memory, are present in many, many, places people don’t think of.

All of those things becoming more expensive or unavailable has the potential to slow or halt those and other industries, even ones whose products contain no electronics whatsoever. If every electronic component between Hong Kong and London costs more, a Londoner couldn’t buy so much as underpants without paying for that a dozen times because every single step of getting that underwear designed, woven, packaged, shipped, and put onto his ass costs way more or has to be done some old-fashioned slower way because some electronic gizmo is cost prohibitive or can no longer be produced.

So, in summary, the article raises alarms about the PC industry, and I am expanding the conversation to point out that PCs are merely the first and most obvious casualty of this market consolidation and resource monopolization, and discussion on this matter would be more constructive to consider the potential harms to broader society and its overall technology dependence, rather than just “Oh no, the PlayCubeBox 10,000,000 is going to cost more now!” It is quite OK to add your own context when talking about the news.

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“Shrinkflation” is a cute branding for theft and class warfare.

They’re going all in on lowering your quality of life to contribute to AI data centers, and pretending it’s some natural market force.

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But it is a natural market force. It’s called greed.

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The problem is that tech companies have fewer choices than ever. They can either hurt performance or raise prices.

Time for less bloaty software, boys!

(also please stop shoving a webbrowser in every app. Or imitating them in your GUI framework)

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Get C back on the menu!

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It’s not quietly making them worse. It’s pretty obvious.

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Besides using the term “shrinkflation” which is arguably a “clickbaity” term in this context, I don’t think the article is terrible. It’s a bit of a nothing article, as it’s something that’s been called out for a while, but a lot of new devices on the horizon are providing less (RAM/storage) for the same/higher price.

Its not the most interesting article, but at least uses real examples demonstrating the effect, which is sadly better than most articles I’ve read on this topic.

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Wow. Calling out the source for the article as “semi-reliable” is quite the dick move.

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Comments in Technology@lemmy.zip

Ain’t that quiet anymore. Everything’s an obviously cheaply built ad platform

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That was my first reaction, too. Quiet? It’s pretty fucking obvious, but people are eating it all up, so whatever..

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Okay, yeah, but at least we have slop. Worthwhile trade.

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Comments in Hacker News@lemmy.bestiver.se

Idk why these articles keep saying things are happening quietly, like no one is noticing, trust me, everyone is noticing.

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It’s the new meta.

We stopped clicking “Could X be Y?” and “you won’t believe X” formats.

Now they have a new one: it’s all vaguely a conspiracy and they’re coming for YOU! You’re just not paying enough attention!

That’s all to say people are fucking stupid and online media is exploitative as fuck.

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Ahh yeah that’s a good point, it’s the perfect strategy for these times too, I guess. Plus it probably makes people feel smart, “oh I noticed that, no one else did? Morons.”

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Because these articles aren’t written for those who notice things (it is very frustrating)

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Well shit maybe I haven’t noticed that people aren’t actually noticing.

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People are definitely waking up though, in the sense that the oligarchal media is increasingly unable to deny reality, so people who don’t pay attention are starting to finally get it through

(So there’s room for hope in a sense?)

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etherphon quietly notices that the public isn’t noticing

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The RAM crisis is not an example of shrinkflation

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The RAM situation is causing shrinkflaition. The article describes situations where new models will have less RAM than old ones but also cost more.

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Why the fuck would they use one of the best computer makers as the main example for this?

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Framework?

Because that’s a good example of where you can see things getting more expensive, especially because Framework is modular so the price is very transparent.

Didn’t sound to me untrue, or even critical. It’s just the market right now.

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