Hardware Obsolecense Is a Myth

"My programs are getting so slow because my computer is getting obsolete!"

Is it though? I mean, if your computer isn't 15-20 years old, then not really. Only those well-informed about the complications of the corporate technological rat race would realize how stupid the above quote is. The blame isn't on the hardware getting "obsolete" or "old," because, with few exceptions (especially if they have been running Windows all the time, which is known for its horrid resource consumption), computer parts from 5-10 years ago are still just as fast and functional as the day they slid off the production line.

In fact, using new hardware comes with a set of huge disadvantages. Most corporations have realized that intentionally letting computers break leads most non-technical people to get yet another sale to generate profit, and hence, most computers nowadays are extremely fragile, breakable, have their components soldered and with "planned obsolescence"; that way, the oligarchs can assure that you'll continue buying new products. Apple might be the worst company in this aspect, and many other manufacturers are following their footsteps; every Apple product has been purposely made to make it hard to fix, even if it's a very simple problem. They even use special screws just to make sure that normal people can't open their devices with a normal screwdriver. If a third-party wants to officially repair their repugnant hardware, he'd have to pay an absurdly expensive license to Apple.

Older hardware doesn't have this problem, as corporations weren't advanced enough in capitalism by then; this is especially apparent for old ThinkPads like the X200 and X220, which were designed for enterprise environments (meaning the financial incentives for the manufacturer are not always planned obsolescence, but a long-standing reputation among large companies of having durable, fixable, and expandable machines).

Add to that, all modern processors since 2008 have included autonomous subsystems inside of them (Intel's "Management Engine" and AMD's "Platform Security Processor") that can read memory and connect to the internet, and proprietary drivers are increasingly being installed permanently on modern hardware. In older computers, you can (with a little hardware action) completely remove the other processor and replace the proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware with Libreboot or Coreboot, but that's not possible on more modern computers, as not all of the components of ME/PSP are removed (I heard that AMD's "PSP" in specific has a disabling switch, but I'm still skeptical if it even works since it's proprietary).

In any case, there's absolutely no need for recent technology in the case of most people, and the only use-cases for them are merely limited to:

1. Processor-intensive video rendering (necessary for audio-visuals media).
2. Software compilation with severe time constraints (necessary for package maintainers to upload binaries into their repositories).
3. AAA gaming on high settings (unnecessary, avoidable, and AAA video games suck anyway).
4. Usage of inexcusably bad software written by people who shouldn't be writing software (which is also both unnecessary and avoidable).

What's the problem with the slow and sluggish feel, then? Well, for instance, just look at how the web has devolved (as is denoted in the beginning of Better Internet); it's not uncommon for sites to load up dozens of JavaScript files, mostly for the purposes of tracking and advertising. When this invariably causes pages to hang, stutter, or for one's laptop fan to spool up, it's not because the hardware components within have magically become slower.

Instead, I blame the unending scope creep of programs and operating systems as they increasingly consume more CPU cycles, memory, and storage. I blame the software that is today built lazily on top of libraries, which in turn rest on top of their own dependencies, making operations that were once streamlined into a mess of inefficient middleware spaghetti. I blame any kind of program that doesn't uphold most tenets of Better Software.

This all, much to my regret, is invisible to those of lower technical aptitude who claim that "hardware is getting old" or otherwise. They're kept on a hamster treadmill which they cannot perceive, and perfectly operational hardware continues to find its way into garbage dumps so that capitalists can keep capitalizing through the economy that this hamster treadmill generates, whilst our planet suffers from millions of tons of e-waste each year; the US alone produces as much e-waste each year as the approximate scale of every single blue whale alive today.

The solution is, again, to use Better Software; a good, simple, and mature software design will have had its kinks ironed out and the time to prove itself in the field, often feature-complete and well-supported by an already existing infrastructure devised around it. Completeness and major bugfixes are generally all addressed a few years into its lifecycle and users can anticipate that updates will not cause major breakages (or new and unintended behavior), since most mature software projects have entered maintenance mode as they accomplished their mission of achieving what the authors originally set out to do.

We should step back a bit from the aforementioned technological rat race and appreciate that there's stability to be found in the old ways; for both withered software and hardware. Gamers, in particular, could use a dash of this perspective; beautiful 3D games of yesteryear are no less beautiful today than when they were launched, and they can still be run on toasters (metaphorically).