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Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by haritha-j on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:49AM (#46511588)
From a resource allocation perspective, this doesn't feel particularly undesirable, at least in terms of certain assets like vehicles. The current system of ownership is quite wasteful. I own a high end GPU that I use maybe 4 hours a week for gaming.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by jrs235 on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:17AM (#46511852)
I agree. However, I don't see the savings from the reduction of waste primarily going to consumers and everyone at large but being kept and collected by the owning class.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by bravetraveler on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:53AM (#46511623)
Join us on the floor of the gymnasium, Carol
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by mynegation on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:18AM (#46511858)
That prompted some googling, but all I could guess, it is some “The walking dead” reference(?)
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by dbalatero on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:21AM (#46511888)
Pluribus, I think.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by Tade0 on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:36AM (#46512041)
Ha, explains why AI is at a loss trying to figure out the meaning behind that sentence - to recent.

Perhaps that's the ultimate AI detector? Information too recent, too obscure or too useless to have been used to train language models?

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by lossyalgo on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:27AM (#46513466)
Not a bad idea, though 'too recent' I think would be the only benchmark - for now, until they get faster at training. OpenAI has thrown away most of their safety team so that shouldn't be a reason anymore to delay model releases "for safety checks".

What would be too obscure or useless, when every new model boasts increasing parameter count (as if having more parameters would make the models better after a certain threshold)?

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by adamtulinius on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:54AM (#46511635)
Can we please not kid ourselves with thoughts about how this being good from certain perspectives, when the development is _clearly_ bad for consumers?
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by b40d-48b2-979e on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:12AM (#46511804)
Done charitably, I think the mainframe model of shared compute does meet most person's needs where they don't need to care about latency. It would allow us to take advantage of economies of scale. The problem, imo, is that no one has an incentive to do this as a service, so it would turn into rent-seeking.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by goodcanadian on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:24AM (#46511917)
But I do care about latency . . . and I want things to still work when the wifi is dodgy. I already find things like Office 360 deeply frustrating (only use it for work).
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by olyjohn on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:44AM (#46512116)
You do, but most people don't. So not enough people will complain that it will make any difference. And the people who don't complain will just keep forking out money because they're addicted.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by platybubsy on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @05:18PM (#46533917)
Most don't? Streaming isn't large enough to say that yet I don't think. Google Stadia wasn't a big hit
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by WhyNotHugo on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:37AM (#46512054)
Sure, a shared model does make sense in many ways. We could share within a family, neighbour cooperatives, and similar scales. With the users co-owning the means of processing.

But the current model is that we all rent from organisations that use their position of power to restrict and dictate what we can do with those machines.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by haritha-j on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:08AM (#46512412)
I do agree with the negatives, but at the same time, I do see some upside. I live in a cycling city, and need to rent a car maybe once a year. why then should I bother myself with the annoyances of vehicle ownership?
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by fzeroracer on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:15AM (#46512518)
Let me be clear here: I do not own a car and I live in a city that doesn't require car ownership.

There is a difference between choosing not to own something because it is personally more efficient or reasonable to do so, and being priced out of owning something. I don't own a car because I don't need it, I rent because I cannot afford a home.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by wslh on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:51AM (#46511610)
On the other hand companies go to cloud services as if they were scaling and complex as a FAANG.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by XorNot on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:51AM (#46511611)
If capitalism prices me out of owning property, then I've not much use for it.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by thrance on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:00AM (#46511689)
Billions are already "priced out" of owning property, why do you think you joining them would have any broader impact?
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by gosub100 on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:21AM (#46512581)
The capitalist system depends on having some people below it to exploit, African villagers notwithstanding.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by codyb on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @11:05AM (#46514095)
I guess the broader impact is cause the people on here actually do have assets and can donate, vote, call, and influence.

So if the upper middle and lower upper classes are being hollowed out...

Well... what's that leave? Just the super rich, and the rest...

And considering the way the super rich are acting, I suppose they're just fine with that. The morally bankrupt sacks of shit that most of them seem to be, or become...

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by ezst on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @07:55AM (#46511642)
Maybe what you're calling capitalism is just oligarchy, in which case the nuance really doesn't matter.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by HPsquared on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @11:01AM (#46514033)
I think the standard argument is that capitalism inevitably develops into oligarchy. Even the most basic setup of property rights protected by a legal system, presupposes a central authority of some kind who makes the ultimate decisions. Where there is law, there are courts, executive and legislative functions. More complex structures like joint stock companies introduce their own dynamics but also depend on a central authority to enforce contract law. Everything is downstream of security.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by kakacik on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:23AM (#46511901)
Trust me, losing freedom you most probably consider as basic as air we breathe since your birth will stop such petty worries.

And no system would give you property just because it would be nice, neither did communism (I know since I grew up in it and saw its destruction of everything good first hand - it had to be bought for non-trivial money with good old mortgages, and only regime-aligned people could).

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by 9rx on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:05AM (#46513161)
> neither did communism (I know since I grew up in it

Impossible. Communism is a work of science fiction, much like Star Trek which is a more modern adaptation of the same idea. Like Star Trek, the concept is dependent on post-scarcity, which we've never seen, and isn't likely to ever happen. Perhaps you mean you grew up under rule of the Communist Party?

> it had to be bought for non-trivial money with good old mortgages, and only regime-aligned people could

The defining features of communism are no class, no state, and no money. It imagines these will no longer be relevant in a post-scarcity world.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by platevoltage on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @02:41PM (#46517496)
I don't know why the this being downvoted. This is literally what Communism is.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by XorNot on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:08AM (#46512421)
The spectrum of possible civic organization is not binary, and is not capitalism and communism in opposition.

Though the insinuation of such is routinely used to justify the ongoing stratification of wealth, and corruption of government.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by kakacik on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:35AM (#46512781)
Well maybe but what examples out of real world do you mean?

Nobody is justifying anything here btw, I don't get why people hyperfocus on imperfections and claim whole thing is useless without understanding underlying reasons and thus options for fixes. Or providing long term working & proven alternatives.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by 9rx on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @02:51PM (#46517646)
> and is not capitalism and communism in opposition.

Hard to say. The prevailing assumption, and basis for the Communist Party (on paper, at least), is that capitalists will try to block reaching a state of post-scarcity — the necessary precondition for communism. This is why they are sometimes considered to be at odds with each other.

They don't have to be. And thus far they don't seem to be. Capitalism, and especially American capitalism, has done far more to getting us closer to post-scarcity than anything else, with US-centric agriculture innovation being the shining example. We're almost there in that particular area.

But we're not there yet and things can quickly turn. It is apparent in that agriculture progress that the capitalists remain deathly afraid of losing control (see the tales of Monsanto, John Deere, etc.), which is exactly the foundation on which the assumption is built.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by mrguyorama on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @03:59PM (#46518640)
>American capitalism, has done far more to getting us closer to post-scarcity than anything else, with US-centric agriculture innovation being the shining example

Uh, the American food industry, like nearly every first world food industry, is super state run. We stopped letting capitalism run farms because regular famine was awful.

Have you seen how much we pay per bushel of corn? Our beef is not cheaper because of capitalism. It's cheaper from enormous state subsidies that are designed to ensure we grow shitloads of certain crops regardless of economic or market factors.

But it stopped all the crazy boom-bust cycles of farming that kept ruining farms, harming farmland, and starving Americans.

Even food stamps is largely about giving farmers more state money for growing things that aren't strictly profitable.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by 9rx on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @04:41PM (#46519245)
> Uh, the American food industry, like nearly every first world food industry, is super state run.

The topic is capitalism. It only speaks to ownership. If you want to talk about who is running the show, you'd need to change the subject to command/market economies. But there is absolutely no reason to change the subject. So, getting us back on track: What agriculture-related capital do you think these first-world states own, exactly? The Canadian government used to own some grain elevators, but even that was sold off to private interests many years ago.

> Have you seen how much we pay per bushel of corn?

How could I not? What a curious question.

> It's cheaper from enormous state subsidies that are designed to ensure we grow shitloads of certain crops regardless of economic or market factors.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Post-scarcity, by very definition, is approached through technical innovation. There is a case to be made that subsidies have helped compel people to develop that technology, I guess, but subsidies and capitalism are in no way at odds with each other anyway. This seems to have absolutely no applicability to the conversation at hand.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by platevoltage on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @02:39PM (#46517473)
I don't know where you live currently, but I can walk 5 blocks and see all of the broken promises Capitalism made too.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by victorbjorklund on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:24AM (#46511910)
If communism you wouldn’t own anything?
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by beepbooptheory on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:41AM (#46512086)
This is not the case, has been corrected a million times by millions of people, and, frankly, if it was about anything else would not be considered appropriate on HN as a comment.

We can do better than play out the same conversations also happening in middle school cafeterias. It helps everyone and could even reinforce your opposing views on the matter. You do your entire ideological position a disservice just doing this old hat!

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by dominicrose on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:46AM (#46512148)
Property prices are a big concern nowadays indeed, especially in high-demand areas. Complete (rich) strangers can come and outbid you.

In the most capitalist places (rich areas without rent control), you can rent a place for years trying to save money to buy in the area and see the rent grow fast enough that you can't buy and even have to leave as a renter.

Capitalism seems to work well for transportable things though, including cars. A house isn't transportable and it also tends to be something quite unique, which makes it incompatible with production in series. Even if you are somehow authorized and able to buy a cheap home, you still have the issue of the terrain, which can be more expensive than the home.

That being said I'm sure that there are people living on cheap (per square meter) terrain and happy about it, but that requires the ability to make the best of it, work on it or find work close to it.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by tbrownaw on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:33AM (#46512018)
> From a resource allocation perspective, this doesn't feel particularly undesirable, at least in terms of certain assets like vehicles. The current system of ownership is quite wasteful.

People are by and large not that dumb. If they consistently choose a more expensive alternative, it means the cheaper alternative is missing something that matters.

> I own a high end GPU that I use maybe 4 hours a week for gaming.

Why? Why currently prevents you from being more efficient and streaming your display from the cloud?

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by Filligree on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:17AM (#46513337)
> Why? Why currently prevents you from being more efficient and streaming your display from the cloud?

Latency. 120ms extra latency makes many games uncomfortable, and some of them entirely unplayable.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by fzeroracer on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @08:37AM (#46512045)
I'm not sure if you're doing this intentionally or not, but it is incredibly funny to see people on HN doing what is effectively manufacturing consent for people to not actually own anything. We've gone from home computing is the future to no one should own a computer because it's wasteful.

I'm not sure where this sentiment even comes from but if the economy only consists of renters and landlords then we don't even have the thinnest veneer of capitalism anymore. We're just Feudalism 2.0.

Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by SkyeCA on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:51AM (#46512960)
The sentiment comes from techbros who see yet another avenue through which to exploit the average person.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by thrance on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:09AM (#46512431)
Capitalism was never about owning things. It's about accumulating capital (hence the name), and renting stuff is more profitable than selling stuff.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by andrekandre on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:03PM (#46522034)
not quite: its about accumulating capital yes, but also with private ownership (as opposed to collective ownership) and the use of said capital to gain more capital (investment returns put back into more investment)

  > renting stuff is more profitable than selling stuff
maybe, maybe not, but it is usually more stable and predictable
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by thrance on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @05:35AM (#46524744)
Nope, you can have capitalism where the vast majority of the population is legally or economically barred from owning anything. The only private ownership required in capitalism is that of the means of production, which says absolutely nothing about the rest.
Re:AWS raises GPU prices 15% on a Saturday, hopes you weren'... by andrekandre on Wednesday January 07, 2026 @08:48PM (#46536078)

  > The only private ownership required in capitalism is that of the means of production
well, thats exactly what i was referring to ^_^

i agree, for personal property, you indeed could have capitalism and deny private personal ownership, and that is a worrying trend nowadays.