Technology

I'm a Linux user, but I like having control over my own hardware, and I don't want my next PC to be an underpowered thin client designed only to work with a commercial cloud OS. I hope this doesn't take off any time soon.

Sure, death of the Windows desktop, maybe.

This will materialize in the same way that Cloud gaming has taken the market by storm. It's nice when you want/need to game on a phone, but the experience doesn't hold up to native and the laws of physics are immutable, you can't defeat the latency of running your PC in a data center miles from your house. Even running Office apps will be a notably degraded experience.

Microsoft is crazy, but they've not done anything to kill the golden Windows goose in all this time, I can't see them thinking this would fly when they know the costs and downsides from doing xCloud.

We already had something similar (not exactly) back in the day with mainframes. You sat at a "dumb" terminal and shared central resources. The industry moved away from that for good reason.

Then we had Unix with remote X. Mix of local and remote resources. Useful for a long time in enterprises but slow connectivity prevented it going mainstream.

Then there was an attempted resurrection with Java. People probably don't remember but the original dream was code running anywhere, either local or central, and we had services that created new "dumb" terminals. Didn't really pan out.

Now we try to build everything with web technologies. Render locally but served remotely. Very much a hack and you see constant pushback and alternatives popping up.

This remote desktop concept only really works for businesses. It simplifies IT management and enforces stronger security controls. Other than that it won't catch on.

Meh. "The Death of the Desktop PC" has been predicted for decades, every time something new comes out.