Might be the wrong subreddit, but I wanted to start a discussion about a possible revival in lower-spec PCs now that AI is cannibalizing modern consumer computing.

The joy of PCs for me is offline creative/coding software where the latest and greatest specs aren't important, and I'm wondering how feasible it would be to go back in time to specs that are low-end enough that no supply chain disruption could mess up the price of entry. Would we really have to go all the way back to music trackers and pixel art with something like Commodore, or is there a happy in-between from somewhere in the 2000s or 2010s where we can keep music DAWs or even Blender and video editing? (Like would making PCs that are 4 GB of RAM still be eventually too expensive? 2 GB? 1 GB? PC makers right now are raising their prices instead of cutting back on specs)

Obviously the world hasn't already ran out of used modern computers on eBay that work fine, but let's say those do run out. How much downgrading can we get out of making new consumer PCs with less specs and more efficient software instead of relying on the current norms like 16 GB RAM or 512 GB of storage?

I don't really have an answer I'm looking for here, I'm just wondering if anyone else has been thinking about this too. I refuse to live in a world where ALL computing is solely done on someone else's servers. I just want the joys of offline PCs to keep living. Thanks!

EDIT: General consensus seems to be that existing hardware that's at the level of DDR3 RAM and below won't be running out anytime soon. Which is good because people also seem to agree there is probably no substitute to the existing supply chain without going back to specs and computer parts as low-tech as the 80s (if most of the tooling from that era even still exists)

Here it is: https://doi.org/10.1109/ASSIC70037.2026.11717448

I don't have access to the paper because of the paywall, and this isn't my paper. I was just searching all over the internet for papers about P=NP and came across this one. What caught my attention the most was that it was published at a peer-reviewed IEEE conference.