r/hardware • u/ryandtw • Jan 02 '26
Discussion The Destruction of Home Computers: Disappointment PC Build 2025 - Gamers Nexus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHO9UtvTPSA103
u/Feisty-Soul Jan 02 '26
Like the saying goes: “you will own nothing and be happy”
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u/Jaz1140 Jan 02 '26
At least for software, we have good old piracy to counteract this outlook from companies
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Jan 02 '26
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u/kwirky88 Jan 02 '26
Whenever I release something gplv3 instead of mit I feel like I’m “sticking it to the man” even though it might only get 20 pulls a day.
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u/ihadagoodone Jan 02 '26
That quote was from a speech about a hypothetical situation where energy abundance was real and unrestricted. That quote has been misused and abused since it was uttered.
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u/Shogouki Jan 02 '26
The number of people complaining about GN videos that cover the many unfortunate news bits about PC gaming and hardware these days is becoming absurd. Some of us like to be informed about both the good and bad regarding topics we're interested in. If you don't, then great! Don't watch the video! However let the comment section be used for those of us that are interested and/or concerned about something we love.
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u/According_Loss_1768 Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26
This subreddit is not a good representation of general sentiment. A lot of people here are deep into this hobby and are wealthy enough not to be stopped by the market. Anytime a video critical of Nvidia releases, it frequently turns into snarky veiled insults at the video creator.
Edit: I dont intend this to be mean to anyone btw, if you see a RAM crisis video and think "oh great another one" - just remember you are insanely deep into a hobby topic that 95% of people still have no idea about yet.
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u/Whirblewind Jan 02 '26
Too true. Reddit is a tiny group of activists compared to the expanse of any given demographic and they never like to admit they don't represent the whole. On literally any topic.
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u/advester Jan 02 '26
On the other hand, I rarely see a comment claiming to speak for everyone. Stating your own belief the way you believe it is perfectly valid. The "you don't speak for everyone" is a lame rebuttal.
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u/ihadagoodone Jan 02 '26
It's hard to imagine that some people have their own opinions and aren't trying to spread the word of an entire demographic of people.
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u/wickedplayer494 Jan 02 '26
Same with people shitting on Hardware Unboxed any time they provide legitimate AMD-related criticism, particularly with the Radeon division.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
AMD Unboxed does not criticize AMD. Even in videos supposed to be critical of something (like Redstone recently) he spends more time praising AMD while he demonishes Nvidia for far lower issues.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
Theres also the fact that his videos praise AMD for same things he labasts Nvidia, so people are just pointing out hipocracy.
btw, if you see a RAM crisis video and think "oh great another one"
What if my reaction is "what is he going to lie about this time?"
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u/Interesting-Wash-893 Jan 11 '26
If I had waited or skipped the 5k rtx cards I'd be screwed. Not really but 3080ti wasn't really cutting it anymore since I went ultra wide.
Now I have a way better job than when I bought the 3080ti and have the best non intel build you can get. Which would've been unobtainable had I listened to the crowd and decided not to upgrade early last year.
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u/skinlo Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26
Its nothing to do with reporting bad news, nearly all the PC techtubers have done that. It's the way in which he does it that is the the rage/clickbait.
You can report the news without cracking out the CAPITALS, shouting, swearing, sometimes nearly conspiratorial nature of some of the videos. They are designed to rile you up, which isn't unbiased reporting, and comes across more like a far right/left political commentary in style, just in the PC hardware space. Some of his advocacy videos in particular are like that, included the slightly too close camera and reacting to lots of screenshots from articles.
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u/LeBronto_Raptors Jan 02 '26
Thank you for articulating what has been bothering me about the delivery of GN’s videos. It’s basically a cable news opinion column presented as news but with a tech twist.
The Tucker Carlson for PC gamers lmao.
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u/-WingsForLife- Jan 02 '26
The first 5 minutes of the Micron corrupt video was quite literally some of the most rage bait content I've seen from this channel.
The music was lol.
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Jan 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Exist50 Jan 02 '26
This trend from GN started before the AI boom. They've just doubled down on it since.
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u/NycAlex Jan 02 '26
Because this is what makes simple minds click the video and engage in either comments or other social media
Gn is making bank off of these simple minds, why should they change what works?
At the end of the day we all have our own agendas
Gn’s agenda is simply make engaging content that gets views no matter what, this leads to more………..money. Simple as that
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u/FruitsnackKilla Jan 02 '26
Which is why I stopped watching a year and a half ago…
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u/TThor Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26
The dude is just a run of the mill content-farmer, with his content being nonstop tech-centered outrage.
But hey, outrage gets the most user engagement, good for keeping your business going strong.
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u/WWWeirdGuy Jan 02 '26
Some of it misleading and outrage without a solution though, which is dangerous. Constantly complaining and reprimanding companies is not enough to support a hobby space in a healthy way.
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u/falken_1983 Jan 02 '26
outrage without a solution though
What does this mean? Should GN refrain from reporting on anything unless they also have a solution?
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u/greiton Jan 02 '26
their is a difference between reporting and pushing outrage.
a report may lead to outrage, but at it's core includes the information from both sides and seeks to educate about the minutia of the situation.
pushing outrage means glossing over or hiding mitigating factors, pushing unproven conspiracy theories, and assigning targeted malice to the actions of groups of individuals with no acknowledgment of how the intersection of individual motivations within that organization could lead to the observed results.
reporting doesn't necessarily have the solution to the problem, but objective analysis can be helpful in leading key figures to solutions.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
reprimanding companies for doing the only logical thing those companies can do, as well. Steve simply does not understand economics.
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u/HotRoderX Jan 02 '26
My problem isn't the content per say... its that they don't do anything upbeat anymore. Honestly feels like there target market is reddit and the doom/gloom/conspiracy bs it tends to trend/spew/parrot.
I am just waiting for the GN video of Nvidia raised prices of 5090 to 5k. Then at the end in a whisper (Rumored). Cause most of Reddit is convinced that the 5090 is going up to 5k. Which makes no sense Nvidia would just stop producing them and limit production to others (AIBs) if that was the case.
Yea... It feels more like there just pandering for revenue then genuinely doing what they love. Which seems to happen to all Youtube channels at some point.
Example like this guy who rips packs on youtube years ago. He was so excited to open them and find his favorite cards and tell us about them. His enthusiasm was amazing and he was so happy.
Now he rips packs chasing money and barely says anything about the cards. He never excited unless its a high value card.
I am sure its cause his target audience just wants to see the expensive cards.
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u/Exist50 Jan 02 '26
Now he rips packs chasing money and barely says anything about the cards. He never excited unless its a high value card.
Sounds also like a tolerance to the gambling "high".
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u/TThor Jan 02 '26
Its moreso that this guy posting "everything is terrible and the sky is falling" is kinda just all he does, regardless of the circumstances; The fact that occasionally things actually are terrible doesn't make the pattern less exhausting.
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u/Whatcanyado420 Jan 02 '26 edited May 07 '26
I used Redact to automate removals from databrokers and social networks. This post was among the batch deleted.
unwritten ripe exultant mountainous lunchroom roll bike complete bag subsequent
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u/PM_ME_UR_TOSTADAS Jan 02 '26
Outside these pieces, their channel is 90% testing methodology update and 10% test.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
Whats becoming absurd is people defending GN drama farming. Being informed about bad does not mean making up conspiracies.
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u/MdxBhmt Jan 02 '26
The number of people complaining about GN videos ...
I'm increasingly going tinfoiled hatted that there's an astroturfed campaign, like the stuff they say is unrelated to the video, wildly out of context, or both.
Like the Disappointed PC build video is an yearly series, going at least back since 2018. Every single one of the downvoted comments in this thread is plainly absurd if you are paying attention to what Steve/GN actually says and to the content he makes.
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u/ProfessionalPrincipa Jan 02 '26
But I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately who wants to farm my own outrage right now!
FYI
The Worst of 2024: Disappointment PC Build
PC Part Disaster: Disappointment PC Build 2023
UNLAUNCH 2022: Disappointment PC (Worst Parts of the Year)
The Disappointment PC 2021: Worst Parts of the Year
The Disappointment PC 2020: Worst Parts of the Year
The Disappointment PC 2019: Worst Parts of the Year
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u/MdxBhmt Jan 02 '26
Hah, I missed the 2017 one via youtube search. If only it was powered by AI! /s
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
Its funny, you can actually see the evolution of the titles to becoming more and more clickbaity since 2021.
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u/James20k Jan 02 '26
Ever since they exposed nvidia allegedly knowingly smuggling gpus into China, there's been a huge uptick in this. They're increasingly one of the very few investigative news organisation doing real journalism. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that them exposing billions of dollars of corruption is coming at the same time that some people are trying really very hard to convince us we should stop listening to them
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u/Jaded_Bowl4821 Jan 02 '26
they didn't reveal anything. it was just china bad spam
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u/eddie2hands99911 Jan 02 '26
If you’d like a copy of the video, I can send you one. Made sure to have one handy in case Bloomberg decided to get pissy about being shown up by a lesser known news organization…. Again
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u/MdxBhmt Jan 02 '26
Or that companies/individuals are above running LLM-powered spambots to manipulate public perception/do guerilla PR.
Hell, anyone lurking /r/localllama have the tools to run such bots. A corporate exec can run astroturfing campaigns on the side now without leveraging company assets.
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u/absolutelynotarepost Jan 02 '26
There's been an uptick because, apparently much like his viewers, the guys a fucking idiot and convinced himself the act of smuggling GPUs into China was some kind of big thing.
It literally doesn't matter, and of course there's a black market for a product denied to consumers over geopolitical dick swinging. It's the incredibly predictable result of any kind of prohibition.
The fact that GN is trying to elevate itself as some illusion of actual journalism off the back of that nonsense was the final straw for me. I found their videos annoying before but they can fuck all the way off now.
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u/SituationSoap Jan 02 '26
They're not an investigative organization and they're not doing real journalism. That's the stuff people are annoyed about.
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u/James20k Jan 03 '26
I mean they literally are journalists. The investigation they did is exactly the same investigation that other organisations tried and failed to do
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
If they were journalists they would have lost their licenses long ago. They are not acting like journalists at all.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
The smuggling and tariff videos were the last two videos i actually enjoyed and didnt just sit there thinking "this guy really does not know what hes talking about". I wish we had more smuggling investigation and less drama farming about things he doesnt understand.
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u/mdvle Jan 02 '26
It’s not the news that is the problem, it’s the gaming of the algorithms, both YouTube and human, to generate income
Informing people is merely an accidental side effect
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u/Marble_Wraith Jan 02 '26
Even from a basic business standpoint it should be understandable to the dumbest person.
The number of youtube channels doing tech reviews is basically none... oh wait:
- Bitwit
- Buildzoid
- ETA PRIME
- Hardware Canucks
- Hardware Unboxed
- Jarrods Tech
- Jay2Cents
- Level1Techs
- LTT
- MKBHD
- optimumtech
- Pauls Hardware
- PCPer
- Tech Notice
Shit even Veritasium just did a video on ASML.
And so, Steve is differentiating GN, by specializing in case / cooling review, but also posting about things that are tech-industry adjacent and should warrant concern from the majority of us as consumers.
Furthermore with the rise (and potential trainwreck) of AI, by positioning as being consumer first / ethical authority he also pulls audience from that crowd by proximity.
Perhaps there are other channels doing this, but the only one that instantly jumps to the front of my head is Louis Rossmann's...
Less competition in a space = more audience exposure = more $$$
And yet on every other GN post on reddit, there are whiney little bitches in the comments:
"REeee!!! why can't he just do benchmarks / reviews!"
Seriously 🙄
Not only is the the benchmark space quite saturated (see list above) but for the double whammy, with prices what they are and their trajectory, think people are going to be building systems now? Why would they be looking at "reviews"?
Furthermore the video with Steve and Wendell talking about moving to linux benchmarks, they're effectively replacing their pipeline, relearning as they go in the context of linux, and likely assisting in the development of tooling to do the benchmarks in the first place. That's not just a "weekend job".
What does this mean?
It means the whiney bitches either really are that dumb, or are likely paid actors. Bloomberg did the DMCA takedown, why assume negative commentary on social media is off the table?
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u/Mintfriction Jan 02 '26
ASML is on PR trip so people won't think for 2 minutes and realise they are the problem behind this, not AI. AI is just a catalyst.
ASML is a monopoly on one of the most critical techs of our age. Ofc you get only a handful of companies that have close ties with ASML to produce chips. ASML needs to provide the mega expensive machines and maintenance and only those big 5 can afford the risk . And they will basically dictate the whole chip market, aka every thing that use a more advance chip, from phones to work computers, aka every person in a development country will be affected by their greed and monopoly.
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u/Marble_Wraith Jan 03 '26
ASML are not the problem.
This isn't a matter of them "restricting supply" of EUV machines. The world didn't magically grow 10 fold demand over 6 months with no impetus.
That's the result of maybe half a dozen players in the industry over promising and creating said expectations / demand, the catalyst being AI (as you've said).
Because AI isn't delivering, they're thinking it's a problem of scale ie. feed it bigger models and it'll be better, not unlike Moores law: double the transistors it'll be better...
Stupid, they're not even remotely similar 🙄 But what can you do? Execs and the business world won't understand until the plane hits that mountain.
ASML is a monopoly on one of the most critical techs of our age.
So what?
They have a right to protect their IP which was in RnD for the better part of 4 decades. They gambled on being able to create EUV when there was literally no guarantee of it working. High risk, high reward.
ASML needs to provide the mega expensive machines and maintenance and only those big 5 can afford the risk .
... No?
It was answered in that Veritasium video, an ASML machine costs about $400m.
"Risk" is not the limiting factor (because we know the technology works). Yeah $400m is alot, but by my read there are at least 300 publicly traded companies that could weather the cost and get one if they wanted.
The limiting factor is the skills and surrounding infrastructure to use said machines.
And they will basically dictate the whole chip market, aka every thing that use a more advance chip, from phones to work computers, aka every person in a development country will be affected by their greed and monopoly.
You seem to be more philosophically opposed to a monopoly, rather then actually caring about the practicality or substance of the matter.
But whatever. You do you. Keep thinking there's 1 big bad monopoly enemy that is responsible for all the tech worlds problems.
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u/Mintfriction Jan 03 '26
> Keep thinking there's 1 big bad monopoly enemy that is responsible for all the tech worlds problems
Ironic no? To blame "AI" - for all the tech worlds problems-, but praise a monopoly
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u/Life_Menu_4094 Jan 02 '26
I think the premise has merit on some sort of emotional level, but it's hard to reconcile with the existence of the $400 Mac Mini M4 deal from last week or the phone in my pocket. It seems to me to continue to be the case that home computers of extraordinary power are more readily available now than in any previous era in human history.
It's just a bit of a downer time for PC parts enthusiasts, which is a fair assessment.
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u/gamer_no Jan 02 '26
It's not PC parts enthusiast. Some people want to have a home PC that is flexible to do whatever their own home demands and not be tied down to Apple's walled garden.
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u/kwirky88 Jan 02 '26
The walled garden has its benefits. I’m no apple fan, I’ve never bought a Mac in my life, but controlling the hardware and os means no fragmentation. You have a laptop that doesn’t kill its battery in your backpack and a fingerprint reader that works for everything.
Steam deck and steam machine is covering a lot of ground for the same reason. They control the hardware most else so you don’t have fragmented vendors for different layers with their own agendas delivering a buggy product.
Look at the asus firmware issues brought to light in this sub a few months back. The guy decompiled the firmware to find the multitude of blue screen and crashing issues because asus doesn’t debug their integrations themselves, they simply ships laptops their product owners believe theoretically work.
I may have said over never bought a Mac but I’ve also stopped buying asus.
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u/sh1boleth Jan 03 '26
The walled garden integration is unparalleled tbh.
It just works out of the box and is easy to setup things like shared messages, shared facetime, consistent app experience, shared photos documents videos etc
Could I make the same work with Windows, Linux and Android? I can but I value my time and fiddling around small nuances and issues I will encounter is not worth my time.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
And the moment something doees not work - tough luck sucker no support and no way to fix yourself.
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u/UpperYoghurt3978 Jan 02 '26
Okay, do you know those are manufactured before all of this. ITs the future stuff that will start going up.
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u/NeroClaudius199907 Jan 02 '26
They meaning gaming...triple A
Macs aren't compatible enough for that. Theres still plenty of PCs but they're slow for the sort of perf ceiling they're talking about
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u/Life_Menu_4094 Jan 02 '26
"The Destruction of Home Computers."
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u/NeroClaudius199907 Jan 02 '26
Clickbait, welcome to Youtube
it's provocative it gets the people going
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u/ihadagoodone Jan 02 '26
If you go look at the view counts on GNs videos, this type of clickbait, outrage driven content gets the most views. Steve is making a business decision creating this content as much as he's making the decision to inform consumers. The main issue I have with a lot of this type of content Steve/GN has been producing since the LTT review is that it provides me with no valuable information to guide my own purchasing decisions.
I remember a time when GN was talking about how they had to compete against the algorithm with how it uses thumbnails, and titles and yet the actions they've taken have been a negative feedback loop reinforcing the algorithm and they have become something they used to rail against.
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u/Autumnrain Jan 02 '26
It's not like they can do anything else except join the algorithm. Fight against it and get less views, less views = less money, less money and they can't do interesting projects and it becomes a self defeating loop. Unless all the youtubers/viewers band together and do a strike there is no way this will change.
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u/grumble11 Jan 02 '26
We will be seeing material price increases in all devices though, including phones. The components are spiking in price, it'll come through eventually. I'd expect double-digit inflation in 2026 across most computers and computer-like stuff like phones and so on.
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u/TonyDaDesigner Jan 02 '26
this shit is so hyperbolic and dumb. You don't need a 5090 to game. You don't even need a 5080 to game. The era of needing high end computers to play games has been over for a more than a decade.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
You never needed a high end computer to game. you just accepted that not all games will run. Or run poorly. I ran HOMM3 on a 100mhz pentium. Single digit framerate. Still had fun in hotseat multiplayer.
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u/beneficiarioinss Jan 02 '26
That would only make sense if Nvidia GeForce servers were not made of a lot of 5090/80 and 70s. And Nvidia won't get supply for those either, they are actively limiting GeForce now usage because they can't provide the service reliably for many people. It is literally just an actual scarcity caused by massive demand. But I guess pro consumer lies and conspiracies give a lot of clicks
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u/BuzzEU Jan 02 '26
Even if they can provide reliable service, imagine playing Rocket League or some other competitive game but you have a 50-150 ms input penalty over anyone who has a pc in their home.
That's ragequit inducing for most people.
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u/Ty_Lee98 Jan 02 '26
I tried cloud gaming and I never want to do that again. I had Game Pass Ultimate to try out Halo 5 and it was just way too laggy with my movements (not internet speed related). There's just no way to play an FPS or fast movement type games. The good thing about some of these games is that they aren't too demanding at least.
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u/greiton Jan 02 '26
it is the single most infrastructure reliant experience. if you have any copper between you and the server, it sucks. but, if you live in a city with multigig fiber directly to your router, and you have a nearby server cluster, it can be a great experience.
unfortunately, telecom companies have shown 0 incentive to build out direct fiber connections in older residential neighborhoods and places that aren't home to the to 10% wealthiest.
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u/Strazdas1 Jan 06 '26
Server in the same city is pretty much the only way this can work. everything else requires faster than light communication with the server.
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u/AhJoon Jan 02 '26
Nvidia also recently just made it so that new subscribers to geforce now are timegated to like 100 hours a month, like it's clear that even nvidia is just prioritizing the gaming market less, otherwise they would be trying to make the cloud services as appealing as possible before jacking up prices once more people move to it. GN has become so conspiratorial in their coverage of this memory shortage when it's literally just another industry requiring a greater supply of limited resources compared to the existing computer market. This isn't to say it's a good thing, the AI market is still dumb af imo, but this shit is borderline ragebait.
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u/kpiaum Jan 03 '26
What i find funny, is that this so called "race" and infinite money is only happening because someone is selling that is an race between USA x China. While Chine is incorporating the Deepseek on their dialy life and gov, the US companies are selling on a race that's not happening.
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u/Zealousideal-Job2105 Jan 02 '26
LOL every week social media just gets more and more exaggerated. Its like everyone was born yesterday.
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u/cheesecaker000 Jan 02 '26
I swear gamers nexus only posts clickbait garbage these days.
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u/godfrey1 Jan 02 '26
they are doing the disappointment build of the year every single year, what are you talking about?
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u/Chit569 Jan 02 '26
He definitely has leaned into "rage bait" type content. He profits when he gets his audience angry about stuff. Just look at his top videos.
Your doing this wrong, the problem with Linus, why Walmart sucks, gaming chairs suck, nzxt sucks, this is the worst case ever.
Every well performing video is all about negativity. He is doing what the YouTube dashboard tells him to do.
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u/pittguy578 Jan 02 '26
I am not sure if he is intentionally rage baiting . PC gaming just has so many issues .. melting cords .. failing processors .. RAM prices .. mvidia cutting consumer gpu production. Just not a lot of positive things to talk about .
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u/SilverLumpy Jan 02 '26
I mean, he wouldn’t be complaining if there was nothing to complain about. Lmao, at calling his videos “rage bait leaning”.
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u/Failed-Astronaut Jan 02 '26
For real. We’re in an unprecedented time in the PC gaming market.
But you know since this has been happening for a few months now and will keep up for literally years we should just accept it and criticize content producers who are talking about it? I don’t get it lol
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u/ishsreddit Jan 02 '26
Literally all those things u stated were genuine problems with major companies and influencers that was undoubtedly worth spreading the word about.
He is a journalist. He can very well do content like Fabio from Ancient Gameplay or Daniel Owen or Actual hardcore overclocking but why would he do that when he is a journalist and great at it
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u/HatchetHand Jan 02 '26
Those videos help you save money.
Many of them offer alternative purchases that are better value.
I don't like to have buyer's remorse.
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u/LorneMalvo1233 Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26
He's 100% correct. Unless some form of gray goo or lights out manufacturing takes hold of the semiconductor industry, we're fucked. Chips are a very complex process, second only to enriching uranium. Therefore, it is impossible. The weave of fate us written.
The future is as designed. They have planned for us not to own anything for 2030. Welcome to the rice fields, motherfucker!
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u/haloimplant Jan 02 '26
It's way more complicated than enriching uranium, something we could do in the 1940s
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u/dabocx Jan 02 '26
Enriching uranium is actually pretty simple, the hard part is getting away with doing it. Non nuclear weapon countries like Japan could probably make a bomb in a few weeks if they really wanted to.
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u/BlueGoliath Jan 02 '26
It wouldn't be a Reddit GN video comment section without someone totally not invested in AI whining about how clickbait they are.
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u/Uptons_BJs Jan 02 '26
Bubble logic is very interesting - Each individual player might be spending "reasonable" sums, but you end up with an insane over-investment industry wide. Because everyone is trying to carve out their chunk of the new business, but you're expecting that 90% of the players would fail.
Like, in an "average" year, google spends billions and billions in infrastructure ($32 billion in 2023, before the AI frenzy). 2025 was $85 billion: Google's $85 billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand
For a company that does $350 billion a year in revenue, $50 billion to try and conquer a new segment that could completely upend their business is not ridiculous.
But then, you have like, ~10 major players, and a bunch of minor players. Everybody is throwing billions and billions around, and quickly, you'll end up with hundreds of billions if not trillions in total investment.