Have things gotten this much more expensive at the same time that massive datacenters are harmonically distorting power delivery [0] to the point that it degrades the lifetime of your existing devices?

The AI datacenters are making things more expensive and at the same time destroying existing electronics. All this is happening at the same time that the major OS vendors are locking down their operating systems and creating device attestation frameworks.

Whether it is a coordinated effort behind the scenes is irrelevant, the real outcome of all of this is that the average home tech prosumer will not be able to afford to maintain personal hardware that remains compatible with mainstream services.

In light of the consumer market RAM shortages, all the consumer devices will transition to thin client architectures that offload all their real compute to the centralized cloud. You will not be allowed to modify these devices, and there will be nothing you can modify them to do. They will have no ports, using wireless charging and wireless connectivity, and likely even any UART will be left off the board, if you can get them open at all. Like the Apple Watch or Airpods, they will not be built to be openable, and opening them will be an irreversibly destructive act.

You will not be able to buy these devices, they will only be available on a subscription basis. You will own nothing and be told you should be happy.

Online major digital services will only be compatible with these devices, offering no endpoints for third party devices to connect.

[0]: https://archive.ph/f707o