As consumer trends shift and corporations find ways to take advantage of it, the latest change has made computers more boring than ever.
If you've been in the scene for awhile, you've probably seen the continued march away from fun for decades. This can be seen in every part of computing from locked down software, games designed to steal your wallet, price hikes across the board, and the increasingly corporatization of the space. This has been brewing since the early 70s as computers entered the home and corporations had to figure out how to push more of them to people who weren't hardcore nerds or needed it for their job. While this erosion has been ongoing, we've watched a real explosion of it in the past decade. So where do we begin? How about maybe the most visible and brightly colored?
RGB Everything
I should preface this by saying that I'm not against the concept of RGB lighting and was even an early adopter when I bought my first Razer Blackwidow Chroma for $175 (that was considered a major price drop at the time.) The problem isn't that this technology exists, It's how it has become the most distinguishing feature. Whereas the scene used to be presented by a diverse range of creations that where visually distinct, the scene is now presented with largely identical glass cases and lights cycling through every color of the rainbow. While this used to be cool and unique back when many of us where used to having to pick what color of lights to run, if we even ran lights, it has emerged as the main way people “customize” their computers.
When you look at most peoples setup, they are largely defined by how many colored lights they can fit into their mostly empty glass rectangle. Its become boring. In the past, lighting was a distingishing feature that typically seperated true enthusiasts from those who just wanted a computer. Lighting was carefully considered and often retrofitted into cases that wheren't meant for it. Lighting also used to be far from the only visual mod done back then. Cases came in all kinds of sizes, colors, features, etc. Even components where often very differently colored and designed which could become an important decision factor when looking at parts with identical specs.
Lack of competition
Parts may be more plentiful but they are often the same and create the same looking glass rectangle with lights that runs Windows. Maybe you get one of the weirder laptops like that HP Spectre with the leather lid or a Mac. Maybe you want to show off your nerd cred by installing Linux on your Glass Rectangle (I run Arch BTW). While Windows and Mac have held the top 2 spots for decades now, there used to be so many more options that actually felt different to use. You had machines from the likes of Commodore, SGI, Sun, IBM, DEC, and so many more. While many of them had UNIX underpinnings, they software stacks on top where often so different that it was hard to tell they have shared lineage. Many of these had such different paradigms that people still pine for machines like them.
Maybe the best example of this is the Commodore Amiga. Not only did their machines have form factors that are now dead (Pizza box, all in one keyboard), but their software is so unique and strange that there are people trying to keep these 3 decade old machines alive. You've got people building accelerators based on the Motorolla 68060 (pretty fast for its time but that was in 1994), and people still making new software to keep these ancient machines capabilities somewhat inline with modern machines. I can't think of anything from this century that inspires this kind of loyalty dead or not. No one is making processor upgrade cards to make their Windows XP machine a little bit more powerful and there certainly isn't that level of backporting software to other platforms aside from maybe Classic MacOS.
How can such an ancient machine inspire such fierce loyalty? It's just that unique. Nothing has been built like it since. Can you say the same about your Glass RGB rectangle? Amiga is far from the only machine that inspires such fierce loyalty but its arguably the most interesting case with how rabid it is. There are still people backporting stuff to other unique old computers like the various Sun Workstations, SGI Workstations, etc. They aren't just random slices of history like your similarly aged old Windows 95 machine. That level of loyalty is now reserved for mac vs windows with linux somewhere in the corner. Whats the fun in that when I've only got 3 choices that are getting more and more similar each year with the continued march to web.
Locked Down Software
Computers used to present the next frontier with everyone shaping them to how they wanted it. For all the jokes about toolbars on grandmas computer, you know she probably thought atleast one of them was cool or useful. It was fairly normal to have 20 pieces of software that serve the same function but do it so differently that there was debate over which to use. Most of said software was also extremely customizable to the point your installation might look completely different than your friends copy. It made interacting with the software fun as you made it yours, tried others, and slowly worked to that perfect computer setup. As software has gotten more complex and as the corporations began replacing the dedicated enthusiasts, software has gotten safe and boring. Everything is streamlined to prevent the user from shooting themselves in the foot. Software has now become a race to who can spend more money to aquire everyone. Want to voice chat? its basically just discord unless you want to break out some of the old software thats barely clinging to life. Need to browse the web? Which color of Google Chrome do you prefer?
Price Hikes
Computers have gotten far more expensive than ever. From the early 80s to the early 2010s, we saw the price of computers continually plummit as competition brought the prices down and as technology allowed better performance. The original iMac launched for $1,299 in 1984 (equivalent to $3,821.87 as of mid 2023), it was considered a relatively high performance machine aimed at the masses which would get cheaper and more powerful over the next few decades. When I first got into building computers in the early 2010s, a $1500 budget would get you a very high end machine. Now thats the price of a high end graphics card. The real kicker? Mainstream computers can be had for cheaper than ever. A basic HP Stream can be had for $300 with chromebooks being even cheaper. But if you want any kind of enthusiast class hardware to actually play games, its the most expensive its ever been to get into the hobby.
That $1500 machine I mentioned? you can still build one for that price but you are going to be running at lower settings and the same 1080p or even 720p resolution I was targeting 10 years ago. Especially with the rise of competetive games, we are essentially gate keeping the hobby to only those with the deepest pockets. We've let the whales set the price for all of us and the corporations know that we won't complain so they continue charging more.
Increasing Corporatization
Like almost any hobby from the past few decades, as soon as its profitable, corporations will rush in to capitalize. Where the community used to hand modify and figure things out to make cool things, now most people just buy a new thing to make it cooler. Where the old community was running random tubing from Lowes and creating waterblocks out of garbage, now you are told to spend thousands from swindlers like EK if you want to so much as run water through a tube. Every problem or ounce of creativity is now solved by buying a complete thing from your favorite Corpo Reseller.
In conclusion
I still build computers because its the only way to stay up to date but all the fun has been robbed from me. I've found more fun restoring older computers than I have building new things. Theres still fun to be had in the scene but its pushing further and further to the fringes. I can still design a linux server with hodpodge hardware and fucky software but the kind of fun your average nerd used to do is gone. Like most problems in our hyper consumer culture, it can be fixed but only if we get other people on board and show them what we've lost. The RGB, Discord, and Programming socks wasn't worth the gutting of such a fun hobby.