AI was supposed to sell PCs. Instead, PC shipments just crashed 20% as AI eats the world’s RAM, and Windows 11’s Copilot agents aren’t convincing buyers

[u/After_Cookies]

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/10/11/ai-was-supposed-to-sell-pcs-instead-pc-shipments-just-crashed-20-as-ai-eats-the-worlds-ram-and-windows-11s-copilot-agents-arent-convincing-buyers/

[u/archive_anon]

AI was never meant to sell PCs. It was meant to sell a service.

When AI becomes the default tool for virtually everything you do, you don't need a PC of your own. You just need a remarkably basic terminal no more powerful than your television to connect to a datacenter which hosts "PC as a service" monthly subscriptions. Everything you do will be monitored, data will by harvested, all privacy will be erased, and that was the goal from the start.

Home PCs will become unobtainable for all but the wealthiest while the rest of us are forced in to paying a monthly sub to access features of a PC, to game, to work, to do our hobbies. They began testing the waters with various cloud services over the years, even full on gaming, and now that they know they can charge huge amounts for it every month and enough people will pay its inevitable.

The current stage is explosive expansion. They are pricing out the consumer market, building datacenters across the globe to host everything, and preparing for the greatest profit they've ever seen. Soon a home PC will cost $10k for something basic, nobody will be able to afford it, and people will be happily paying a relatively cheap monthly sub because they've been conditioned in to being okay with it.

Next stage is people actually being okay with datacenters - after all, without them how could they possibly afford compute services? Then the prices skyrocket further once they've cornered the market.

[u/happywindsurfing → u/archive_anon]

Hopefully this will start a "low compute" revolution where some random country starts making good enough PC parts based on say a 14 nm process, with a very optimised and streamlined OS designed for everything to be as human centric as possible.

Alongside indie gaming on integrated graphics etc.

[u/PestoPastaLover → u/archive_anon]

No one seems happy about data centers. I saw a headline today about a company offering people in a Pennsylvania town $10,000 each to support building one there, and residents were calling it a bribe and refusing.

These companies seem convinced people actually want this stuff dropped into their communities, but a lot of people are pushing back hard. That bubble is getting nice and big. It reminds me of tech companies repeatedly trying to make “Glasses™️” a thing every few years. Google Glass, Snapchat Spectacles, Meta Ray-Bans... same basic idea, different decade, and most people still aren't lining up to live inside some always-on tech fantasy that Zuckerfuck built.

[u/TheGreatOneSea → u/PestoPastaLover]

People are used to getting hosed: they know that $10,000 will be ripped back from them one way or another, be it tax increases, tax credits to the company, or utility price increases.

The only people who would take it are the people desperate enough to move elsewhere if the economy demands it, and most companies probably don't want to be in towns that dysfunctional.

[u/PestoPastaLover → u/TheGreatOneSea]

The main reason why this will never be a thing is simply because of privacy concerns.

Maybe, I don't want Zuckerfuck knowing that I'm frequently spanking my meat to him drinking that tall glass of water like a normal human while he's getting grilled by senate... it'll just get awkward for the both of us... suddenly OpenAI is there to watch... then I decide to go look up how to make blueberry muffins... That kind of shit... makes me thirsty just thinking about it...

/s

[u/GrapefruitPrimary186 → u/PestoPastaLover]

Is it weird that I would turn down having Zuckerberg's money if it meant that I would have to be Zuckerberg?

[u/PestoPastaLover → u/GrapefruitPrimary186]

Not weird at all. It’s basically a Monkey’s Paw kind of curse.

You wish to be fabulously wealthy, but in return you’re permanently awkward enough that people constantly make fun of you for it even on the national level, and nobody really likes you because you’re that guy.

The extra twist is that your ego won’t let you just shrug and stop caring, especially when you also own THE social media platform.

So you get the money, the influence, the platform, all of it... and somehow still can’t buy the one thing you actually want: people genuinely liking you.

Elon got it worse.

[u/Aksudiigkr → u/PestoPastaLover]

And it’s not even like an Amazon warehouse where if you have one close to you then you benefit. I don’t get why they think anyone would want it near civilization

[u/templeofsyrinx1 → u/archive_anon]

It is actually disgusting. We are now headed backwards from the PC revolution and back into the IBM mainframe eras. Except the mainframes now are much more powerful.

[u/hackenclaw → u/archive_anon]

now that they know they can charge huge amounts for it every month and enough people will pay its inevitable.

Lol, thats their investor wet dream but it not gonna happen if they think they can charge $50-100 per month.

We all know how it paying TV monthly sub all end up when they went from Netflix only to every platform has their own subscription. It become too expensive for people and people start canceling subs.

Service or not it makes no diff to me, Paying $1500, over 10yrs is the same as pay $1500 for decent desktop PC that last 10years. This is may sound unpopular opinion, but as long as you keep your budget under control these greedy companies will never able to squeeze money out from you. Computer service are a luxury, they are not a necessity, you can opt out.

The only thing we should be worry is privacy, it is not like the services we use these days dont have spying element. I dont like it either, I cant stop it, but I will try & choose to adapt, avoid falling victim of getting squeeze by these greedy companies.

I still gonna say they are going to hit a wall if they think they can milk the public like $50-$100 per month, infact they are lucky to even get $5/month sub. $5 for 10yrs is like $600, $1200 if they can get away with $10/month. Anything more is insanely difficult to get most people to pay for it.

[u/Exciting-Emu-3324 → u/archive_anon]

This is just circling back to mainframes that "microcomputers" (PCs) replaced.

[u/AbhiFT → u/archive_anon]

In the end, it's the greed of the consumers that got to them. It's the consumers who played to the tune of the corporates.

[u/green_meklar → u/archive_anon]

Soon a home PC will cost $10k for something basic

That's kind of infeasible to pull off. Remember, the AI companies need to pay those prices too. Hardware can't simultaneously become unaffordable for everyone unless it literally disappears.

What's actually more realistic is for computer hardware to be regulated by governments with the excuse of safety (you know, 'for the children' and all that), so in order to have your own PC you need official licensing and government spyware and so on, pushing most people to use cloud subscriptions as a more convenient alternative.

Next stage is people actually being okay with datacenters

AI doesn't need especially low latency. They can put the data centers anywhere. They can put them in space or under the ocean if that's what works politically. The only way to stop the data centers, plausibly, is to improve local and distributed AI technology to the point where centralized server clusters cease to be practical. But that seems unlikely.

[u/Not-the-best-name → u/archive_anon]

You do know that data centers take less energy than if everyone did the compute they needed at home ?

[u/archive_anon → u/Not-the-best-name]

I have absolutely no clue why that matters in the slightest when I didn't mention energy once, nor did op.

If you're so concerned about energy consumption that you're willing to completely forfeit privacy, independence, and freedom then that's your prerogative. I for one am not willing to forfeit such things.

[u/SunDownSav → u/archive_anon]

Idk ‘where’ ppl like u/not-the-best-name get off carrying water for Billionaires and C-corps?

Chuck it in the pile of the other sh*t I don’t understand.

[u/460659016976712 → u/Not-the-best-name]

Good point, and now with consoles killing physical games we got rid of that plastic too!

Can’t wait to rent some compute then rent some digital games and have a blast.