The IT/electronics industry after peak oil?

[AniThyng]

What all the things being said in N&P and SLAM about peak oil, I want to know from the more learned denizens - what is the future of the IT industry? What will happen to our beloved PC Games and console games? Is now a good time to just splurge on the latest DX10 monster cards because there will not be a DX11, never mind a refresh of DX10? How about K10? How about the global electronics industry in general?


And I'm going to start working as an anti-malware analyst at F-secure soon, is it a dead-end job now?

[InnocentBystander]

I guess its as dead end as any job if you think in 10 years the world will be like Mad Max...

[Arrow]

After reading through the SLAM threads, I think there still be an IT industry. While there will be unemployment, economic depression, little/no private travel by car and the suburbs will die off, there will still be electricity to power big cities, and governments and big corporations that need to use computers (really, too much depends on computers for them to go away).

If you're working Geek Squad in Suburbia, you're not going have to job when Peak Oil gets serious. If you're working for the Uncle Sam or some big company that is critical to the economy, and you live near mass transit, you'll probably be fine.

I expect the prices the for many consumer electronics will rise, and the markets will shrink, and the days of having multiple computers and TVs per house will be gone. But their will still be some CE devices, but they'll be fewer in number and intended for communication; so I'd guess you'd still have cell phones, small TVs and computers intended for internet browsing (all low powered devices), but home theaters, consoles and game PCs will be limited to the rich and upper class.

The other thing is that Peak Oil effects really depend on when we actually hit it. If December 06 was the Peak Oil, we'll be facing the most serious economic consequences. If we hit in the next decade, the effects will still be serve, but somewhat mitigated as alternative fuels will have had more time to develop (I've been reading a lot about them lately, they're picking up steam and I'm hopefully they'll offset the nastier effects). If Big Oil is right (yeah, right...) and Peak Oil is two to three decades away, the effects will be much, much less.

[AniThyng]

I live outside the US though, in Malaysia, and seeing as we are one of the world's largest exporters for electronics assembly, I wonder...the likes of Dell, Intel and AMD contribute a lot to the economy with their factories here. If international shipping of chips and stuff grinds to a halt it's not going to be pretty. The factories halt, all thier subcontractors can't do anything, I suppose it would be good to be in the civil service rater then the private sector...especially in an export-oriented economy.

Maybe I should use my f-secure job to leverage being sent to HQ in Finland...

Granted, I live near a commuter rail station and within bus distance of a light rail transit station, so my corner of suburbia is pretty good by that standard.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

For one thing I think many IT companies are going to start offering their employees the opportunity to work from home, then scaling back their offices and other physical locations. My job uses so many online systems that I could already do it from home, in fact it would be much easier for me. My girlfriend already works for Google from home.

[aerius]

It's going to take a little while for all the effects to work their way through the system, so there's no need to splurge on a top of the line system right now. Rather, wait till the panic starts and grab something on clearout, cheaper that way and given how fast computer tech is advancing a year or 2 can make a big difference in speed and features.

Console games will likely take a bigger hit than computers, computers are pretty important to the running of our society so there will be pressure to keep the industry running in some form. It'll get scaled back and you'll no longer have memory chips, hard drives and so forth getting shipped all the way around the world and then getting assembled and shipped around some more, instead each market area will now have to have its own production facilities. Consoles are an unessential luxury item, I think they'll either go under or get diverted into making something more useful, leaving only a small niche industry for the rich.

On the software side, I really don't know, I don't have any experience & background in that area.

[Lisa]

I expect to not have a job. Currently working in the tech support industry for consumer goods...