Over the past couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff happening in tech — faster CPUs, better phones, broadband connectivity and digital entertainment.
Despite these advances, I often see or hear people wanting for more — faster, harder, better (much like that song). On top of that, we also want them cheaper. Nothing seems to satisfy us at all.
So when I look back on what has transpired in the last decade, I’m totally amazed at where we are right now. Consider this scenario from 5 to 10 years ago…
- From 1999 to 2004, my PC has always been the same PC — an Intel Pentium III 350 with 512MB RAM and NVidia Riva TNT2 32MB. I did Photoshop, Premiere and played Warcraft 3 with it. It was a great machine.
- When I finally upgraded that PC in 2005, I also bought a 17″ Sampo flat screen CRT monitor for Php7,000 and was loving it. Today, I have two 22″ and one 32″ Samsung LCD monitors in my room, yet sometimes I still find them a bit lacking.
- In 2004, I tried to apply for a fixed wireless broadband in Bacoor, Cavite with Meridian Telecoms. I was willing to pay an installation fee of Php10,000 and a monthly fee of Php8,999 for a 128Kbps wireless connection. I moved to Makati and applied for a 256Kbps for Php2,995 with GreenDot. I was very happy with my 256Kbps. Thank goodness Smart bought Meridian the next year and dropped the price to Php999.
- The very first laptop I bought was in 2006 — an unbranded OEM named eBox (Celeron 1.4GHz) and I paid over Php30,000 for it because I thought it was already very cheap for a laptop. Today, a netbook with the same or better specs as that one would be considered expensive at Php30k.
- In 2005, I bought my first PDA — a Palm Zire 71, sporting a 144MHz Texas Instrument OMAP310 processor and 13MB of usable memory. I didn’t have 3G, WiFi — just Bluetooth, but it was cool.
- In college, every time I go to my home province of Guimaras for vacation, I had to go outside in the plaza and climb up the basketball tower just to send and receive SMS. It was still cool since I am able to contact friends back here in Manila from the boondocks.
- When net cafes started popping up in the metro, people were willing to pay upwards of Php60 an hour. Today, some people still find Php20 an hour on 3G expensive and want them cheaper and unlimited.
Today, we always complain on every drop of our bandwidth, on phones that do not have WiFi, netbooks that should be under Php30k or a WiMax service that’s capped at 512Kbps.
I’m sure a lot of you here knows how it was like when tech innovations in the 90′s and early 2000 are far apart and between. Looks like the faster technology updates, the more demanding we have become of it.
Updated: Here’s a clip shared by SpiderMang in the comments — People in Today’s Society Take Things For Granted.
good for you. in my case i never had a desktop, probably because my job sytarted off as sales, then marketing, then both marketing and technical. i bought palm m105, then upgraded to sony clie sj30. my first lappie was an acer apire. then two years after hp mini 1000.
Hi,
Sorry but I need to ask about feedburner. And i got problem with it.
After registered my blog with feedburner, my blog link become a feed bulletin of feedburber when added into blog list. Why?
mykhairul90@yahoo.com
These days, I consider adopting and maintaining a more/better/faster/now/damnit attitude obscene. It’s just, well, wrong, given the context we’re currently in.
Abe,
The Wendy’s and Penshoppe examples you cite are mostly the result of inflation – we expect prices to go up as a matter of course. The Wendy’s spaghetti price, for example, is equivalent to a year-on-year increase of 8.8% over the 13 year period between 1996 and 2009. What’s different about technology is the exponential increase in processing power for a given area on a microchip (i.e., Moore’s Law). As new, more powerful chips come onstream, the older models get discounted. The increase in processing power, as well as intense competition in the tech sector, is more than offsetting the inflationary effects.
same reason that you want your girlfriend always hotter than others!
Ah my first laptop had a whopping 700MB hard drive and a 75Hz processor!
@bon — ahh yes, inflation. But if we are looking for a faster, bigger and cheaper PC then why are we not also looking for a faster delivery, bigger hamburger patties and cheaper fries?
@darren, then why aren’t married people divorcing their old wives for younger more beautiful ones? wait, they do.
Abe,
The tech industry has conditioned us (and therefore our expectations) to think in terms of Moore’s Law. It will always be cheaper and better next year.
OTOH, food is a major component of the consumer price index – it naturally rises with inflation.
I remember, back in 2004, I was happy na with a 56KB Dialup modem hooked up to PLDT Vibe.
I also remember na 40GB was enough space for me, nung mga 2002.
pero now, 1mbps plan is not enough for me. and I have almost 3.5TB of space in my PC.
Back then, we had a pentium 3 500mhz 6gb computer that we said was impossible to fill.
Our internet was as fast as 32kbps and all of our cousins and friends was very impressed.
My first cellphone (1999) was an Ericsson GA628, a one-liner gsm that i had the antenna change to a blinking one.
Today, all of these are near worthless.
very nice post..
3 months ago nung d pa naka out ung 5800
sobrang gus2 ko na palitan ung nokia 6288 which is ok nmn .. i chose n81 8gb then after a month of use at lumabas na ung 5800 kamuntik ko na benta nga half price un a month old n81 at ung 6288 nakatambak lng kahit ok pa sya…
buti na lng na pigilan ko urge…
may dell 1405 me core 2 du0 gud specs and when i sent it sa dell repair sa antel global dko makatiis sa small screen ng aspire 8″ ng sis ko so while in repair i bought new acer laptop 4736z… now i have dell from repair and got new one…
i want to get acer timeline.. eh nung binili ko aceraspire 4736 la pa daw news kelan dating un.. i even emailed acer sales directly and called them la pa din daw… 2 days ago villman websit nakapost na yang acer timeline…. ayaw ko na ung acer 4736 … considering dell ko na sa akin pa wala pa week ung acer ko … hay .. BAON na BAon itong post mo sa aKIN…
in short demanding me unnecesarry na….
I use my fast desktop (1 gb or ram) to play games.
I use my old sempron rig (128mb ram) running zenwalk linux for work (writing in abiword, spreadsheets in gcalc and some coding). I am able to be productive kasi walang distractions.
That’s pretty much my take on PC specs. It should be dependent on what you need and how will you be using it.
It’s like getting a Ferrari only you can’t really crank it up because the roads suck. hehehe
But when it comes to my internet, there will never be enough bandwidth hehehehe
Hi Abe,
I forwarded your feed to everyone else at Friendster and they had a blast reading about your experiences. The youtube link was hilarious which I forwarded to some other friends.
But on a more serious note, technology has indeed evolved faster than we can ever learn and relearn their practical applications. I have yet to discover what else my MsWord can do and yet I use it on a daily basis and still not know what else it can offer.
Technology can be good, but wasted if we cannot learn fast enough how it is really good for us.
nice article yuga.
Technology has grown exponentially due to our hunger for communication, socialization, and networking. Having a faster rig, larger disk space, or having an LCD with the highest contrast ratio will eventually, though not directly point out to our need for connectivity… and all the other stuff comes with it… if you know what i mean.
Nice article yuga…
jas
i agree that nice post
never ending technology! we are all victims here.
hehe.. hayden cam scandals and more to come.haha
People wants the highest specs. and the best components for their gadgets. Specially for their PCs/MAC. But in reality, VERY FEW utilizes their computer’s processing capability. There are a lot of MAC users today but majority of them uses their mac just to show off or type documents with. =p
What’s ironic is that most Filipinos play games that doesn’t need much computing horsepower.
actually yuga, you can’t compare technology to food. because food as a basic need was being manipulated its price due to the increase of tax and the like. however technology on the other hand is trying to give the best and will be. who knows one of these days, food will become more cheaper because we’ll be eating via machine. joke.seriously that’s life facts.