--- title: Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted | daily.dev description: A personal essay lamenting soaring PC and component prices, attributed to the AI hardware boom, and their impact on the ability to maintain free and open... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted | daily.dev og:description: A personal essay lamenting soaring PC and component prices, attributed to the AI hardware boom, and their impact on the ability to maintain free and open... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Md2GCrYFl.png og:image:alt: Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted **[Jay Little](https://daily.dev/sources/jaylittle)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personal essay lamenting soaring PC and component prices, attributed to the AI hardware boom, and their impact on the ability to maintain free and open computing setups. The author describes their home lab of Raspberry Pi 500s, backup Pi 400s and old mini PCs, rising SSD and laptop prices (citing Framework 13/16 and ThinkPad pricing), and offers coping strategies: doing more with less, repairing rather than replacing, and installing Linux on hardware Microsoft deems incompatible with Windows 11. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The AI boom crushed PC building, but it's the best thing that happened to home labs](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-boom-crushed-pc-building-but-it-s-the-best-thing-that-happened-to-home-labs-lfu77h0s1) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hold on to Your Hardware](https://daily.dev/posts/hold-on-to-your-hardware-9nqouzuov) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Raspberry Pi is cheaper than a Mini PC again \(that's not good\)](https://daily.dev/posts/raspberry-pi-is-cheaper-than-a-mini-pc-again-that-s-not-good--91zjuysv7) · Jeff Geerling · 92 upvotes · 4 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#raspberry-pi](https://daily.dev/tags/raspberry-pi), [#self-hosting](https://daily.dev/tags/self-hosting) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl"},"datePublished":"2026-08-14T22:32:48.599Z","dateModified":"2026-08-14T22:39:52.198Z","description":"A personal essay lamenting soaring PC and component prices, attributed to the AI hardware boom, and their impact on the ability to maintain free and open...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--P4t4XyoV--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2001","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--P4t4XyoV--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2001","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Jay Little","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Jay Little","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/d51dadef9f4a479dab3d0b92910dcb64","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/jaylittle"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/hardware-obscura-freedom-interrupted-md2gcryfl","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux,raspberry-pi,self-hosting","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jay Little","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/jaylittle"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Hardware Obscura Freedom Interrupted"}]} ```