I suggest a very different reasoning: we know WFH works, we also agree that in large part of the world we have enough sunlight for p.v., battery storage could be cheap [1] and FTTH connections start be be very good for modern time. Who have already understood where I want to go?
Well, we could run decentralized systems at home for SMEs/Startup common needs from modern homes of remote workers, just renting them a room with proper local equipment the modern remote worker probably already have (VMC, A/C, "the big UPS" from domestic p.v.) with not much more expenses than using someone else computer also named "the cloud". Then if/when needs mount some sheds with p.v. + local storage and good connections can pops up. Who need a CDN in such setup? Then/if a real small datacenter could born.
Are you horrified? Well, now try to see the recent history, when Amazon choose not to buy expensive and reliable SUN servers choosing cheap and crappy PCs or Google choose to save money with rackmounted velcro-assembled PCs with a built-in UPS, i.e. a naked velcro strapped one. See the history of buying cheap low quality ram because we have ECC, lo quality storage because we have checksums anyway and so on. Then think about some real recent datacenter fires and what they told about "how brilliant and safe" was their design.
Long story short: as we ditch big iron in the past, we ditch mainframes, it's about time to think ditching dataceter model as well for a spread set of small unreliable but many machine rooms at homelabs scale. This, like FLOSS gives us reliability, cheapness and ownership as well. This ALSO decouple hw and sw giants, witch is a very good things in terms of free markets. It will also force he OEMs to be flexible in their design and ditching slowly from modern crappy fats-tech also some giants deprecate [2] as unsustainable, for more balanced tech because well, such homelabs last much longer than typical ready-made PCs and craptops or NAS from the mass distribution market.
[1] buying from China directly instead of feeding local importers who skyrocket the price instead of lowering it when Chinese supplier lower them
Well, we could run decentralized systems at home for SMEs/Startup common needs from modern homes of remote workers, just renting them a room with proper local equipment the modern remote worker probably already have (VMC, A/C, "the big UPS" from domestic p.v.) with not much more expenses than using someone else computer also named "the cloud". Then if/when needs mount some sheds with p.v. + local storage and good connections can pops up. Who need a CDN in such setup? Then/if a real small datacenter could born.
Are you horrified? Well, now try to see the recent history, when Amazon choose not to buy expensive and reliable SUN servers choosing cheap and crappy PCs or Google choose to save money with rackmounted velcro-assembled PCs with a built-in UPS, i.e. a naked velcro strapped one. See the history of buying cheap low quality ram because we have ECC, lo quality storage because we have checksums anyway and so on. Then think about some real recent datacenter fires and what they told about "how brilliant and safe" was their design.
Long story short: as we ditch big iron in the past, we ditch mainframes, it's about time to think ditching dataceter model as well for a spread set of small unreliable but many machine rooms at homelabs scale. This, like FLOSS gives us reliability, cheapness and ownership as well. This ALSO decouple hw and sw giants, witch is a very good things in terms of free markets. It will also force he OEMs to be flexible in their design and ditching slowly from modern crappy fats-tech also some giants deprecate [2] as unsustainable, for more balanced tech because well, such homelabs last much longer than typical ready-made PCs and craptops or NAS from the mass distribution market.
[1] buying from China directly instead of feeding local importers who skyrocket the price instead of lowering it when Chinese supplier lower them
[2] https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/der2024_en... of course suggesting the wrong answer