Jeff Bezos said the quiet part out loud — hopes that you'll give up your PC to rent one from the cloud

Comments

• Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’ll repeat what I said elsewhere:

  Renting PCs is probably overall cheaper and a lot better for the environment. Most people don’t need a machine, they just need a thin client and something to access a few apps maybe 30 mins a day.

  Even “power users” don’t need a machine.

  If there were a non-profit or not-for-profit that was selling maybe an rpi we’d be saving a lot of money and reducing climate harm.

  I just don’t trust bezos to not be greedy.

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  • RamRabbit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    This assumes we have amazing internet all the time. I sure don’t.

    This assumes latency between your location and the remote location is almost non-existent. It isn’t.

    This assumes I will be able to use the cloud computer in every way I use my current computer. It won’t.

    This assumes, as you point out, they won’t be greedy once they control everyone’s machines. They will.

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    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Modern desktop streaming is quite impressive. 100ms, 5% loss is no problem for most tasks. You don’t even notice it, and as a result your experience can sometimes be better.

      Additionally you can offload some tasks to the local machine where appropriate.

      You dont need to fit every users needs into a thin client setup, but you could fit probably 50% of all users onto one and they wouldn’t know any different. Think of the energy savings. Think of all that plastic that goes into a desktop or laptop that isn’t needed in a virtualized blade chassis. Think of the rolling performance upgrades. Think of never having your hardware go End of Support. Think of the old equipment that ends up properly e-wasted instead of shoved into a dump. Think of the batteries that no longer need to get produced.

      I might play around with this idea and host my own non-profit Desktop as a Service.

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    • tal@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I will say that, realistically, in terms purely of physical distance, a lot of the world’s population is in a city and probably isn’t too far from a datacenter.

      calculatorshub.net/…/fiber-latency-calculator/

      It’s about five microseconds of latency per kilometer down fiber optics. Ten microseconds for a round-trip.

      I think a larger issue might be bandwidth for some applications. Like, if you want to unicast uncompressed video to every computer user, say, you’re going to need an ungodly amount of bandwidth.

      DisplayPort looks like it’s currently up to 80Gb/sec. Okay, not everyone is currently saturating that, but if you want comparable capability, that’s what you’re going to have to be moving from a datacenter to every user. For video alone. And that’s assuming that they don’t have multiple monitors or something.

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  • irmadlad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Most people don’t need a machine, they just need a thin client

    Amazing how we’re come full circle

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    • SilentObserver@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Right! I had no idea Bezos used Lemmy either!

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  • Euphoma@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    This pretty much already exists as the business model for web based apps and chromebooks, but it doesn’t work for all types of apps which is why chromebooks added android and linux app support

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    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Desktop streaming isn’t the same as web apps.

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  • Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    what a bunch of bullshit. Act like the individuals are responsible and ignore the massive data centers that would be required using water and power.

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  • timmytbt@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    If only “greedy” was his only problem!

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• Burghler@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Hope he falls out a 10 story window

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  • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Why not 11?

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• irmadlad@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’m not so sure how ‘quiet’ it was. We’ve been putting desktops in the cloud for quite a while now.

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• quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I’m game. I like campuses with dumb terminals and private clouds, where you can restore your session from any building at any desk.

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  • tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    There’s reasons for thin clients and cloud computing. It should absolutely not be in the hands of greedy companies though.

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    • quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yep. Sometimes computers in the cloud are your own computers.

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  • beeng@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Plan9

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