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…
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.
YugaTech.com is the largest and longest-running technology site in the Philippines. Originally established in October 2002, the site was transformed into a full-fledged technology platform in 2005.
How to transfer, withdraw money from PayPal to GCash
Prices of Starlink satellite in the Philippines
Install Google GBox to Huawei smartphones
Pag-IBIG MP2 online application
How to check PhilHealth contributions online
How to find your SIM card serial number
Globe, PLDT, Converge, Sky: Unli fiber internet plans compared
10 biggest games in the Google Play Store
LTO periodic medical exam for 10-year licenses
Netflix codes to unlock hidden TV shows, movies
Apple, Asus, Cherry Mobile, Huawei, LG, Nokia, Oppo, Samsung, Sony, Vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Infinix Mobile, Pocophone, Honor, iPhone, OnePlus, Tecno, Realme, HTC, Gionee, Kata, IQ00, Redmi, Razer, CloudFone, Motorola, Panasonic, TCL, Wiko
Best Android smartphones between PHP 20,000 - 25,000
Smartphones under PHP 10,000 in the Philippines
Smartphones under PHP 12K Philippines
Best smartphones for kids under PHP 7,000
Smartphones under PHP 15,000 in the Philippines
Best Android smartphones between PHP 15,000 - 20,000
Smartphones under PHP 20,000 in the Philippines
Most affordable 5G phones in the Philippines under PHP 20K
5G smartphones in the Philippines under PHP 16K
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2024
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2023
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2022
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2021
Smartphone pricelist Philippines 2020
Ramil Kue says:
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.
paul0 says:
What’s ironic is that most Filipinos play games that doesn’t need much computing horsepower.
Techie says:
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
RICH says:
never ending technology! we are all victims here.
hehe.. hayden cam scandals and more to come.haha
jude says:
i agree that nice post
cobi says:
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
gio says:
nice article yuga.
Jun Velasco says:
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.
spidamang says:
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
andy cruz says:
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….
Cheftonio says:
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.
sleepybear/seoulbox says:
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.
Bon says:
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.
Abe Olandres says:
@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? :D
@darren, then why aren’t married people divorcing their old wives for younger more beautiful ones? wait, they do. :D
Marissa says:
Ah my first laptop had a whopping 700MB hard drive and a 75Hz processor!
Darren says:
same reason that you want your girlfriend always hotter than others!
Bon says:
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.
mish says:
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.
Khairul says:
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?
mykhair****@****.***
John Ray Cabrera says:
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.
bugITs - technology news and updates says:
i agree..nice post bro!
bugITs - technology news and updates says:
i agree..nothing more.. nice post there yuga
Neobux says:
Just like what the Hippies say:
“We’re all pawns of the big, greedy corporations. The only way we can avert the likeliness of this is by living a normal life and elude from the casual use of the internet… It’s draining our metaphysical awareness”
drew says:
blame it all on the innovators and.. the businessmen. lol!
Life's Algorithms says:
there’s only one thing constant in this world, “change”. the law of survival states that you change or you perish. and that’s why gadgets and computers change.
Neobux says:
“Another example is the food industry. In college, Wendy’s spag and hamburger was just Php16.75. Today, that same spag costs Php50.”
-oooohhh, the f*cking costs nowadays. Good thing I don’t live on those treats. Fish from the talipapa gave me a muscular body and a sound mind. All I get from McDonald’s was a queasy after-meal fallout.
Abe Olandres says:
@Patrick, my point exactly; but the question still remains — why with technology, we want faster and cheaper but with other stuff like fashion and lifestyle, it’s the other way around.
I used to be a fan of Penshoppe clothing back in high school. Their Nature series t-shirts were only Php250, I think in early 90s. Today, that same t-shirt would cost at least Php600. A Levi’s 501 was around Php1,000 back then but today, they cost around Php2,000 or higher.
Another example is the food industry. Wendy’s spag and hamburger was just Php16.75 in 1996. Today, that same spag costs at least Php50, 4 times more expensive.
ALPSaguado.com says:
Men have unlimited wants–it’s a principle of Economics. :D It’s natural to ask for more!
And complain for that matter. Haha.
Vidar says:
I got my first PC back in 2001. It’s an AMD K6-2 500MHz with 64MB of RAM and 4MB onboard video. I was happy back then because I was able to play Counter-Strike and Diablo 2 with it.
rene says:
It seems it boils down to your needs. What is your needs. If its gaming surely you need the fastest to cope up with the fast actions. If its just word processing and surfing from time to time you’ll be contented with a 900mhz or lesser.
sky says:
On the PC side, everything changed with the advent of dual/multicore CPUs. The Pentium line was relegated from being Intel’s premium brand to Intel’s basic lower end brand.
On the ISP side, broadband became cheaper and cheaper when people realized that there are actually other broadband service providers aside from PLDT.
What I missed about CRTs were the viewing angles. While LCD technology has vastly improved since its birth, there’s just no denying that CRTs are still better when it comes to viewing angles.
Neobux says:
There’s no leverage on Technology, as more and more people are getting inclined with it.
Guys, please feel free to sign up on my site.
Add my messenger: neobuxfriendster and I’ll help you out.
And by the way, Yuga — thanks for this very insightful post.
ador says:
i was doing web designs projects on an amd sempron machine with 500mb ram since 2005. it just went bonkers recently and i can’t even open itunes on that thing and it takes like 30 minutes for windows to boot. now it can only run ubuntu. i hate it when i have to spend cash just to upgrade the machine. i think i’ll wait for windows 7 to arrive before i buy a new desktop.
Watch Movies Online says:
I can relate in net cafes, way back 1999 the cheapest rate is 30 and 60 is a regulare rate for mall net cafes today 30 is the cheapest mall net cafe rates and 15php is the regular rate.
I saw 5php per hour in cebu you just need to give the owner of the cafe a drugs =P
Patrick says:
Well… duh! It’s a fact of life and human nature not to get contented with what we have. This also applies in other things not just technology.
This reminds me of that amazing Pixar movie “Wall-E” which depicts one possible future of mankind. And with the rate at which our tech is advancing and how we humans use it, I’m afraid we’re just about to make that movie a reality in a few hundred years. Not that any of us will be there to see it happen. xD
a.cantos says:
people always seek their limits… though it seems that for technology, there’s no boundaries.
i think i’d be satisfied with today’s technologies, when it comes to gadgets, if manufacturers would also stop innovating…
koolitz says:
kelan ba nagsimula ang SMS sa Pinas?
Reel Advice says:
I guess one thing to consider is we already know what the capabilities are for what we bought. So if I pay for a net connection stating they can give me speeds of 2mbps, then my expectation is they should deliver. So any drop in that then we complain.
The more we see that things are getting better around us, the more we expect and the more we get easily unsatisfied. I hope that made sense! :)
Jhay says:
It’s human nature I guess. We’ve always wanted things to be faster, better, and cheaper. Once we stop craving for these things, innovation may just come to a stand still.
vern says:
It is our every right and duty to demand more of what we pay for.
BrianB says:
You may also have to thank MS Office if not too many people feel the improvements from Pentium to core duo. Word and Excel feel about the same after all these years.
BrianB says:
Of course, Moore’s law. You’re also forgetting productivity. How productive were you with a Meridian connection, and paying 9k a month for it?
I was luckier. I bought my first laptop late 2006, paid 50k for a secondhand dell 700m, already with licensed MS Office and licensed Symantec corporate edition. I also remember paying 3,600 for a 2MB globe, and splitting the fee with five other flat mates. I had a huge living room (common room) but I lived in the maid’s quarter (alone,though, with my own bathroom). Cost of living was under 10k total.
spidamang says:
this reminded me of this clip…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOtEQB-9tvk
Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy. :D
PC Domination says:
indeed sir yuga, i agree with you
anonimo says:
One of the OJTs here in the office still can’t believe that processors run at a then-powerful 40MHz back, and you were considered blessed to have owned a 40MB hard drive. And he couldn’t believe that it was already considered powerful :P