Anup Gavali | Mindful Marketing

  Why You Can’t Afford Your Next PC: Silicon Scarcity, AI, - End of Consumer Computing The Shift from Consumer Technology to Capital Extraction For decades, the technology industry grew by expanding consumer value. Faster processors, cheaper memory, better software, and increasingly capable personal devices formed a virtuous cycle: innovation lowered costs, widened access, and created new markets. Consumers were not an afterthought; they were the engine. That era is ending. Today, the dominant growth narrative in technology is no longer centered on consumer empowerment, but on capital extraction specifically through enterprise contracts, hyperscale data centers, and “AI-driven growth.” This shift is often framed as inevitable progress. In reality, it reflects a deeper structural change in incentives that is quietly dismantling the consumer computing ecosystem and reallocating scarce physical resources toward a narrow set of corporate buyers. This article argues that the current tra...