Will our PC's and Mac's be 100% cloud based in the future?

[Andy D]

Help settle a disagreement (or more likely make it worse)

I have a hypostasis that in the next 20 years, nobody will need to buy PC's, Mac's, or gaming consoles.

Because our high-speed internet is getting so crazy fast, and components are becoming so powerful,
but for the most part, underutilized 95% of the time, it will make sense to have all your computer components and your programs/games cloud-based and just pay a monthly fee.
Meaning, you would only need to own a monitor, keyboard & mouse. Not only would that be better for the companies that owned the rights to the programs
but it would make it so much easier to take your "computer" anywhere you went.

Some of the guys I work with do not think this is feasible and/or will be the route we go in.

What do you think?

 

[Solventinkjet]

Steam games are a good example of this already beginning to happen. You buy a game and download it to your computer and Steam checks to make sure it is legit. Then if you switch computers, you just log in to you account and download the game again. It's already been verified as a purchase on your account so you don't need to have a physical copy to install on to the new computer. The big hurtle I see in this going as far as you have described is that convincing people to log into an account for every piece of software they purchase is going to be a hard sell. I can't remember all of the passwords I have already. Imagine if you had to remember one for every software company you ever purchased from?

20 years may be too short of a time period as well. I think by then our cell phones will be some sort of universal hardware device that can be hooked up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse wireless which will do away with PC's for the most part but I don't think the higher speed internet will be fast enough to run full scale 3D games, high resource using programs etc. at a usable speed.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Steam games are a good example of this already beginning to happen. You buy a game and download it to your computer and Steam checks to make sure it is legit. Then if you switch computers, you just log in to you account and download the game again. It's already been verified as a purchase on your account so you don't need to have a physical copy to install on to the new computer. The big hurtle I see in this going as far as you have described is that convincing people to log into an account for every piece of software they purchase is going to be a hard sell. I can't remember all of the passwords I have already. Imagine if you had to remember one for every software company you ever purchased from?

EA has been doing this for awhile as well.

I don't see how "you" can do the gaming that's available now without something locally stored to help mitigate the bandwidth usages. You have to remember, even if internet is crazy fast, you still have data caps as well for some depending on what service they have available in their area.

I can see this perhaps being being more the case for the average consumer, but depending on what business a person is in, may not be quite as quick to happen either. But then again, I actually like having a desktop and more of the physical components as well, so I hope that it doesn't happen too quickly.

 

[Baz]

Cloud based is fine but .....

I'm always going to need my old Windows XP porn box.

 

[Biker Scout]

I personally asked Steve Jobs this question, regarding a fear about the potential of the merging of iOS and OSX. (Meaning everything app or cloud based) He said to me that was never the intention. Because, there will still be the need for powerful workstations to even make the graphics and the apps in the first place. Apps can't do what Pixar does, nor would a cloud based PC have the computing power to render a 3D scene.

However, a lot of that HAS changed. Could rendering is a real thing, and it's faster and cheaper than having your own server farm.

Also, have you seen what you can do with an iPad? Aside from the really cool sketching and 3D apps that are out there, I can actually take a photo of a store front, overlay some vector based graphics, and actually cut those on my plotter! Obviously, I can print... but I always thought that once the entry barrier to real working vector graphics was tackled, then I could see myself using an iPad professionally. Now there's even a desktop laser cutter that can cut and engrave right off your iPad. (Glowforge)

You either evolve, or fall by the way side. Gotta keep up, to keep on.

 

[Andy D]

The big hurtle I see in this going as far as you have described is that convincing people to log into an account for every piece of software they purchase is going to be a hard sell. I can't remember all of the passwords I have already. Imagine if you had to remember one for every software company you ever purchased from?

I see it as more of a third party company such as steam that you just have to log into one account to access all your software.

I see the hurdle of having to send all the data for games that you would normally have on your Hard drive... not sure about the workaround for that.

But with a program like Photoshop, they would have processors and ram that your average consumer could only dream of, we probably
could do that today, don't you think? You wouldn't have to worry about compatibility or viruses.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

But with a program like Photoshop, they would have processors and ram that your average consumer could only dream of, we probably
could do that today, don't you think? You wouldn't have to worry about compatibility or viruses.

More work load on the servers, more people accessing more things at the same time. Not something that can't/won't be overcome, but there will be some teething pains. Plus, even if the system can handle it, it may not be as fast as if it was local and the only one that was making demands on that program was your computer.

Biggest problem that I have, is if everything is dependent on an internet connection, that goes down, then what? Doesn't necessarily have to be on their end (people hosting the software/service etc), but it can be on yours or the people that you have that internet service with. If it's local, I can still get work done, if it's cloud based, I'm out of luck until whatever causes the issue is fixed. I've had a couple of internet outages this year that was on the provider's end. Each one lasted 6 hrs and right in the middle of a busy work days. Would not have been very productive if those programs were cloud based.

From a general consumer perspective, this has it's pros, from a business perspective, not so much. I don't think desktops/laptops will go by the way side, I think their target audience will change, but I don't think they will go by the wayside.

Also, don't think virus, hacks etc won't affect us. They just might not go directly after us, but imagine if something infiltrates a server like Adobe and prevents you from doing your work or get your info etc. So they can still affect us, just may not be directly.