Computer Capitalism has nowhere to go
In terms of technology for regular people, we’ve come to a point now where we don’t need more. We don’t need more video resolution. 4K is plenty, and I would say 1080P is still more than good enough. Most of what I watch on Virgin Media TV is still in 720P, even now. No one really complains. For photo editing you don’t need anything crazy. The reasons to upgrade a phone or computer are diminishing rapidly, and more and more people are realising it. I used to be so into new tech, more power and all of that stuff. Gradually it started waning maybe 5 or so years ago. I stopped watching all the Apple conferences; stopped caring about gimmicky new features, unless they clearly weren’t solutions looking for problems. But most of them are.
Even if you look at professional applications, I struggle to think of anything that needs more power. Perhaps AI medical technology would. General AI uses a lot of power, and to me, that’s a big reason to not go down that route. I think AI for specific tasks that can really enhance our lives can be great. General AI is not really necessary, and is most likely going to end in tears, as we’ve all been told recently by the media, and obviously long before that in science fiction.
In terms of regular people, maybe a new phone camera would be nice, especially if they can increase the optical zoom functionality. But do you really need that on a phone? People would probably benefit from having a separate camera that can provide better zoom for the odd occasions that you’d use that; while sharing out the battery drain between two devices.
I didn’t watch the recent Apple event, but I heard about the computer models they announced on the PetaPixel podcast, which is mainly about photography. They were saying that very few people need these powerful machines now, and that got me thinking.
We’re going to be simplifying our lives as climate change gets worse and worse. Even if capitalism continues for the next 5 to 10 years (which I really doubt at this point), what would these tech companies sell us? Phones and computers that are excessively capable for what the vast majority of people need to do? Perhaps they’ll focus even more heavily on services (like Apple TV+) once they realise that people don’t need more powerful / gimmicky devices. But, again, I don’t see them being able to push this indefinitely before people get sick of being so busy all the time. Being so committed to watching every new show. They’re going to rebel against that I think.
It feels like capitalism has reached its end point. We don’t need more stuff. We don’t need more power. We don’t need more pixels or better gaming graphics. We just need to enjoy what we have and make the most from it. Does anyone really think that the PS5 is not powerful enough? That we need even bigger TVs and games that are 100% indistinguishable from real life? I don’t think I want that. The closer we get to photorealism, the more I realise I don’t actually want that. I want games to look still look like games.
This obviously applies to every other aspect of our capitalist society as well. But it really interests me specifically in terms of tech; because for so long, we’ve been obsessed with the idea of ceaseless progress. And that we would always need more. The thing is, all of a sudden, we don’t.
You might be thinking that I’ve forgotten about AR and VR, and that it will be the thing from now on that keeps tech capitalism charging forward and making us buy iterative headsets. I don’t think so. Firstly, people are increasingly being lured back to nature. We’re getting tired of looking at screens all the time. Especially when they’re right in front of our eyes. My eyes can just about adapt to my new camera with an electronic viewfinder. That’s about as close to VR as I want to get. Before you accuse me of being a hypocrite, my old camera is a 14 year old model, that still works, mind you. But I thought it was time to get something better than I can grow into over the next decade plus (assuming our existing societies last that long). I never said I don’t buy anything. I just keep it to a minimum.
The basic fact is that we have enough, we don’t need more, and we don’t want to end up like the obese, permanently sedentary characters in Wall-E. That was the future we seemed to be hurtling towards, before we thankfully began gradually veering away.
Originally published at http://christill.org on August 9, 2023.
