Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On Sat, 25 May 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

D  <nospam@example.net> wrote:

On Thu, 23 May 2024, Paul S Person wrote:
>

The East Asian Technotrash I found in various categories on Amazon
were mostly from mainland China. But I won't say it all is, because
this is a game anyone can play.
>

You mean technotrash that exists in every major data center on the planet?
Or are you talking cheap toys?

>
In terms of the trash in datacenters, the basic philosophy among the IT
people is that it doesn't matter if equipment is built well or not beause
it will be replaced in three years anyway due to technological change.
>
This is what put guys like DEC out of business... nobody wanted to spend
money for more solidly-built machines when they were going to discard
them long before their expected end of life.
>
I do find it hilarious talking to component manufacturers, though, all
of whom have special lines of disposable junk parts.  Buying electrolytic
capacitors you have to keep a sharp eye on the "expected lifetime" given
by the manufacturer and what temperature that lifetime is measured at.
Every day they make parts with shorter and shorter expected lifetimes
at lower and lower prices.
--scott

Let me add that this tends to happen by engineering driven companies who are out competed by sales driven companies.
But the blessings of the market saved DEC. Bought by compaq and then by HP, turned into HPE, and then spun off in the form of VMS Software Inc.
Alpha is dead but VMS lives on.
Without the market, DEC would probably be dead and forgotten, but now it lives on in the DNA of the market that always finds the most efficient use of a good technology in the long run. =)